Frankenstein, pole dancing bears and the London Underground on ice
Sweden’s Icehotel has returned for its 24th year complete, with an array of new designs for its selection of suites.
Every year the Icehotel is rebuilt from scratch over two months using 1800 tonnes of ice. Each construction uses entirely new designs making each hotel completely unique.
Throughout the year people submit plans to the hotel in the hope of being given a chance to realise their designs in ice. This year there were 200 entries by people wishing to make their (temporary) mark on the sublime Swedish landscape.
The Swedish Icehotel is the original ice hotel but the concept has spread all over the world. One can even be found tucked away off Regent Street in London.
Fittingly, as you can find an ice hotel in London a piece of London can be found in Sweden’s Icehotel. One of the rooms designed for this year’s hotel features a to-scale reconstruction of a tube carriage.
The Mind The Gap room, designed by British film director Marcus Dillistone, is a tribute to the underground on its 150th anniversary.
Other suites include the Narcissus in which guests share a room with a huge sculpted head gazing into a mirror, and It’s Alive; a room inspired by Frankenstein’s experiments complete with a light installation that, when activated, sends electric shocks around the room.
At the hotel’s centrepiece, the Icebar, guests can enjoy vodka and cocktails served in shot glasses of ice. This year it plays host to a gargantuan Japanese fish sculpture that functions as the bar.
The Icehotel stays open until mid-April. The hotel can be found in the village of Jukkasjärvi in Swedish Lapland.
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Great article! The Icehotel never fails to showcase the most magical ice designs! My particular favorite has to be Marcus Dillistone’s ‘Mind The Gap’, it’s so effective when something so common place as the tube is transformed in ice. I also found Marcus Dillistone’s diary of the build really interesting http://www.discover-the-world.co.uk/en/ice-hotel-2014/mind-the-gap-diary.html and some great pictures and insight into stage.