Slow Food Nation - Pickle and Chutney Pavilion

San Francisco, USA

Restaurants, Bars, Clubs

Architects: Piechota Architecture

Location: Fort Mason Center, 94103 San Francisco, USA
Year: 2008

Slow Food's focus on local food and culinary tradition has been embraced all over the world since the organization's founding in Italy over twenty years ago.

The Pickle & Chutney Pavilion featured walls made of pickle jars and a ceiling composed of 3,000 mason jar lids suspended from filament. A total of 3,024 metal canning lids became an undulating and dynamic "ceiling" suspended with filament, Velcro and earring backs. The "walls" created with multiple rows of jars simply attached to wood studs and arranged to encourage visitor participation by taking and leaving recipes showcased within the jars themselves.

Over the course of a month and ten "build sessions" that resembled old-fashioned knitting circles, over 100 volunteers contributed their help, ideas and stories to the completion of the Pickle Pavilion. The community that formed throughout this journey would become the most valuable aspect of the experience and distinctly reflective of the Slow Food movement.