To celebrate the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles (or Booths), Canary Wharf Group has constructed a tabernacle at its latest open space, Montgomery Square. The tabernacle was designed by Kohn Pederson Fox Associates, the firm responsible for designing 10 Upper Bank Street leased to Clifford Chance.

The festival is also referred to as the Season of our Rejoicing, Sukkot or the Festival of Ingathering as it is also a harvest festival. It lasts for seven days (beginning this year on the evening of 10th October) and commemorates the forty-year period during which the children of Israel wandered in the desert, living in temporary shelters and depended on the protection of God.

Paul Katz, the designer at Kohn Pederson Fox responsible for the Tabernacle, said,

“ I was drawn to develop a concept for the Succah that was both modern and primitive, a shelter that tied the historical concept to the physical context. The walls of the Canary Wharf Succah are literally weaved through the columns not only providing an efficient use of natural materials but also making an abstract decorative texture that symbolizes the unifying aspect of the festival. The weave is structurally advantageous, decorative and symbolic. The Succah is ideally located in the newest public plaza in the centre of one of the most impressive built developments of our time. It reminds us of the strength and spirit that can be achieved in even the simplest and most humble structures.”