Ice Hotels

Jukkasjärvi is roughly two hundred kilometres above the Arctic Circle, on the Torne River, and the ice hotel there has been rebuilt every winter since 1989 from ice harvested out of that river. ICEHOTEL 365 is the permanent half of the operation: a solar-cooled structure that holds its temperature through the summer, so the ice art suites exist year-round rather than melting back into the water each spring.

The rooms are carved. Each suite is designed by a different artist or pair of artists working the ice as a sculptural material, which means the accommodation and the art are literally the same object — a walls-floor-bed continuum at around minus five degrees, with thermal sleeping bags and reindeer hides doing the work that heating normally would. A warm building nearby holds the bathrooms, the sauna and the changing facilities, and most guests split their stay between a cold night and a warm one.

The seasonal winter structure alongside it is a different proposition again, larger and rebuilt to a new design annually before being allowed to melt. Between them they represent the clearest example of the form. Summer brings midnight sun and river activity; winter brings the aurora and the cold that made the place possible.