TBT: Design inspiration in a frozen hotel

In today’s Throwback Thursday we revisit the Ice Hotel — 200 km north of the Arctic Circle in Sweden. This unique hotel is built and rebuilt every winter using ice, snow, and a lot of creativity. It’s a masterpiece of design and is an inspiration for curved architectural elements that could be built — permanently — in a Monolithic Dome.

We first presented the ice hotel in our 2016 article, “Curved inspiration in ice,” but it felt like we should revisit not only the previous photo gallery but to take at some of the new “art suites” built in the past few years.

The hotel is open with extra COVID-19 precautions. Because the bedrooms are literally made of ice, guests have access to a 24-hour heated facility with bathrooms, sauna, showers, and places to store guest belongings. Guests sleep in the ice rooms with warm clothing and provided sleeping bags.

Each room is called an Art Suite and was designed and built by artisans from around the world. Look over the photos of recent years and also check out our earlier story for more.