Gingerbread City showcases architect design skills

A gingerbread model of The Gaumont Chelsea Cinema. It is green and covered in marzipan, with a large purple tentacle snaking out of a top window. Popcorn has been used to make a layer of snow and a green witch stands on the roof.Image source, PA Media
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Popcorn and tentacle at the ready at Chelsea Cinema

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Gingerbread is associated with a number of things - Christmas, being an excellent construction tool when erecting giant displays of biscuits when you're a contestant on Great British Bake Off, and the slightly peculiar choice of a couple who wanted to have a son and so baked one for themselves.

And it has another, lesser-known, string to its bow - a medium for architects to show off their design skills.

Gingerbread City has established its urban sprawl at the Gaumont in Chelsea, where it's on display at the Museum of Architecture.

The baked buildings use traditional gingerbread, sweets and icing.

A gingerbread train in a gingerbread tunnel. It has a sign saying Bakerloo, with the "oo" made from two round sweets.Image source, PA Media
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Services are delayed due to icing on the tracks

This year, more than 25 gingerbread structures have been created with the theme of Recycled City, showing examples of buildings and places that have been - or could be - turned into something new and exciting.

They include transformed railways arches, water towers, power stations, disused chapels, factories and shipping containers.

Gingerbread model of Spitbank Fort, with miniature figures on top. It is covered in blue glassine icing. Image source, PA Media
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Spitbank Fort has had many iterations - a military defence, a museum and a luxury hotel "with sea views" before it was created in gingerbread

Spitbank Fort, a circular construction in the sea off Portsmouth. It is grey and its name is painted on the top. It has a little red lighthouse on one side of its surrounding wall and a swimming pool can be seen from the time it was a hotel. A Union Jack flies.Image source, Creative Commons
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Less tasty but structurally sounder, Spitbank Fort was originally built in the 1860s as a defence against military ships

Organisers have described the exhibition, to which more than 50 designers and architects contributed, as a "magical gingerbread metropolis".

They said it showed how architects and designers could help solve some of the world’s most pressing problems such as climate change, "all through the medium of gingerbread".

It is on display until 29 December.

A construction site with a gingerbread crane and a building under construction. Workpeople are depicted waving their arms in a manner that would be unsafe if it was real.Image source, PA Media
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The workforce could do with a health and safety briefing. Where are the hard hats? The barriers? The hi-vis jackets? The allergy warnings?

A close-up of two gingerbread people, one with a cracked leg.Image source, PA Media
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Perhaps I can catch you after all, gingerbread man, with your broken leg

Gingerbread village with icing decorations and twinkling lightsImage source, PA Media
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A winter ginger wonderland

Gingerbread Power Station, based on Battersea Power Station. It has brandy snap towers and is decorated with Smarties and marshmallowsImage source, PA Media
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"Is it a bird? Is it a plane?" No, it's probably just a hyperglycaemic episode

Battersea Power Station, a large red brick building on the edge of the Thames. It has a high chimney in each corner and is surrounded by low-level greenery. Office blocks can be seen around it.Image source, Getty Images
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A rather humdrum offering of Battersea Power Station rendered in brick instead of gingerbread

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