Icehotel is a design-inspired living museum built on the bank of the Torne river in Swedish Lapland every year since its inception in 1990. Thousands of tonnes of ice are harvested from the river each year for its construction, which takes place over eight weeks between late October and December. The interior of the Icehotel remains similar to a conventional hotel, and features a bar, reception, luxury suites, main hall and a church.
This year’s hotel will have approximately 65 rooms ranging over five categories, including 11 individually-designed suites created by guest artists. Plans for the building of the 24th ICEHOTEL are well under way, with the 20 winning artists announced, including two Brits – film director, Marcus Dillistone, and sculptor, Rob Harding.
A total of 200 designs were submitted for this year’s hotel, with those selected including a London underground platform, a Frankenstein-esque science lab, pole dancing polar bears and a Montmartre-inspired roof-top setting – all made of ice and snow. The guest designers, who will be responsible for crafting the 11 art suites in the hotel, have diverse backgrounds from film direction to architecture, children’s product design to visual anthropology.
Marcus Dillistone – who worked on the 2010/11 Icehotel with a suite based on the inside of a fridge – has chosen to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the London Underground with his design, a suite called Mind the Gap. Rob Harding, on the other hand, has worked with his son to deliver a winning design based on a vision of Before the Big Bang.
