The Hartwig Art Foundation in Amsterdam has announced its second open call for the Gingerbread Competition, inviting proposals for a structure made from one of the most unusual building materials available. Submissions from artists, architects, designers, students and gingerbread enthusiasts are open from October 21 until December 1, 2026.

The competition takes place at Hartwig Proxy, the testing ground for the future Hartwig Museum in Amsterdam. This year's brief asks entrants to propose the next condition of a building: what happens after construction, after occupation, maintenance, inheritance or abandonment, and when a structure gains new users with different behaviour.

Gingerbread, the organisers note, has a strange relationship with time. It is structural and edible, decorative and functional, familiar and odd. It can be built, broken, shared, preserved or eaten, which makes it a fitting medium for thinking about how buildings change hands and meanings.

Each proposal must be presented on a single A3 sheet, to be displayed publicly from December 10 to 13, 2026 at Hartwig Proxy. An international jury led by Hartwig director Beatrix Ruf will select the winner, to be developed and constructed in 2027, while a people's choice prize will be decided by live voting on the evening of December 10. Both winners receive a trophy, a festive cake delivered to their home, and a hard hat tour of the future museum.

The competition is also a piece of audience building for the future museum. By inviting the public to propose, vote on and then visit a gingerbread building, Hartwig Proxy turns an architectural question into a festive event. The winning structure will be constructed at a scale agreed with the curatorial and production team, giving one entrant's idea a real, if edible, presence in Amsterdam.