Throughout history, pavilions have animated parks, waterfronts, and urban districts with recreational and commercial activity and innovative design. Our competition challenged designers to re-imagine Coney Island’s famed Parachute Jump, one of the most iconic and best-loved pavilions in New York City, by testing the formal and programmatic limits of what a pavilion can be, and connecting it to both the history and the future of Coney Island.

The project garnered 864 designers from 46 countries with fresh proposals for an all-season Parachute Jump. The competition catalyzed debates over the ongoing revival of Coney Island, and introduced futuristic proposals with implications for urban recreation in New York City waterfront communities and beyond. The winning pavilion was designed by London-based architects Kevin Carmody, Andrew Groarke, Chris Hardie, and Lewis Kinneir, who received Van Alen Institute’s first New York Prize for research and development of the text, “The Pavilion: Symbol of Recreation and Regeneration.” Each of the competition submissions was made accessible to the public through a Summer 2005 exhibition at Van Alen, as well in the book, Coney Island: The Parachute Pavilion Competition published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2007.