Can Do: Is This Replica of the Standard Hotel Really Constructed from Tuna Cans?

Q. When is a can of tuna more than just a can of tuna?

A. When it’s grouped with more than 4,000 others to create a grand-scale sculpture of New York’s Standard Hotel, aka The Candard Hotel.

Explainer: Each year at Thanksgiving the nation-wide Canstruction competition challenges designers to think up clever ways to fashion sculptures, the wittier the better, out of food cans. The edible creations go on display for a week or so before being dismantled and distributed to the needy.

“The Candard Hotel” was one of 25 structures built from 101,369 cans of food in New York’s Canstruction competition, on view through Monday at the World Financial Center. Among our favorites were “I Think I ‘Can,’” a visual riff on “The Little Engine that Could,” and “Tomato Tornado,” a gigantic funnel constructed from canned tomatoes.

But we love hotels, so the Candard gets our vote. Constructed by DeSimone Consulting Engineers, the 4,056-piece structure comprised of canned tuna and canned green beans depicts the Standard’s double-rectangle structure as well as the High Line park, which ribbons below the hotel.  The deconstructed Candard, by the way, will  be donated to City Harvest and will feed 1,500 New Yorkers.