One of the staples of the holiday season is the gingerbread house. Henry Hargreaves and Caitlin Levin have taken the art of building a gingerbread house to a new level with their creations for Art Basel, a winter art festival in Miami Beach. For a show at Dylan's Candy Bar, they wanted to do something involving both candy and art, so they recreated the world's most famous art galleries and museums in gingerbread and candy!

An interest in architecture spurred a focus on recreating graphic architectural images shot in black and white, while also being a deliberate antidote to the vivid colors and sweetness often associated with the medium. Like most projects taken on by the two, Caitlin and Henry were met with their share of challenges. How does one make the Louvre's glass pyramid from candy, and what is the best method to strengthen thousands of candy brick to turn them into the support walls of the MAS Antwerp or curve the walls of Zaha Hadid's Maxxi in Rome? In the end however, these beautiful and fun images emerged, a little bit fine art and a pinch of Candyland.

Pictured above: Tate Modern - London - modern extensions, Herzog & de Meuron

Gingerbread, hard candy, cotton candy, bubble gum

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum - New York - Frank Lloyd Wright

Icing, Gingerbread, Cotton Candy, Candy wrappers, licorice, sugar

Karuizawa Museum - Nagano - Yasui Hideo

Chocolate, gingerbread, hard candy, cotton candy, sour flush

The Louvre - Paris - Pyramid extension, I.M.Pei

Gingerbread, hard candy, licorice

Museum Aan de Stroom (MAS) - Antwerp - Neutelings Riedijk Architects

Gingerbread, lego candy, hard candy, sesame candy, chocolate, bubble gum, sour rolls

Maxxi - National Museum of the 21st Century Arts - Rome - Zaha Hadid

Gingerbread, hard candy, lollipop sticks

Museo Soumaya - Mexico City - Fernando Romero

Candy balls, gingerbread, sour rolls, taffy

All surfaces of the structures are edible. Get a glimpse of what they look like in color (click on the right arrow in the linked gallery to see three more pictures). These works will be exhibited at Dylan's Candy Bar in Miami Beach, Florida. The show opening will be Friday, December 6th from 6-8 PM.

See also: previous posts on the photographic art of Henry Hargreaves and Caitlin Levin.