Sweltering from successive heat waves, we’re dreaming of chill winds, ice saunas and arctic plunges. So this week we decided to dig into our archives of frozen architecture. Enjoy the cool.
When you think of ice architecture, igloos probably spring to mind. For thousands of years, Inuit communities across Alaska, Canada, and Greenland have carved these temporary shelters from blocks of snow as winter dwellings. Before modern refrigeration, ice was cut (à la Frozen) in Arctic regions, stored, and sometimes transported thousands of miles to keep food cool in Bombay or Rio de Janeiro.
But there is little evidence of ice being used more widely in construction until the winter of 1739-40, the coldest in central Europe in 600 years known as The Great Frost. Russian Empress Anna Ivanovna commissioned a spectacular ice palace in St Petersburg to celebrate Russia's victory in the Russo-Turkish War. It included a banya built from ice and hosted bizarrely cruel festivities including a human zoo, and a mock wedding of a former prince-turned-jester to a maid. Sources say the couple arrived at the palace in a cage on an elephant and the event was topped off with an enforced overnight stay in the ice suite.
The fantasy ice-castle vibe continues at the annual Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival in Heilongjiang Province, China, where ice sculptors carve a 296-acre (120-hectare) neon-lit ice city featuring recreations of historic landmarks, fairytale castles as well as huge sculptures of anything from Buddha to the Moomins.
Not surprisingly, architects and artists love experimenting with this most impermanent of materials. Since 1989, ICEHOTEL, 200km north of the Arctic Circle, has pioneered the frozen hospitality genre. Conceived as a habitable installation, every winter it is built to a fresh set of designs selected from annual submissions.
“Humidity can hit 100%, creating a microclimate between a steam bath and sauna. Bathers get a front-row seat to a spectacular elemental transition”
Culture of Bathe-ing
Another benchmark was The Snow Show which took place in Kemi and Rovaniemi, Finland in 2004-5. The curators invited seventeen artist-architect collaborators to push the structural and aesthetic limits of building with ice and snow. Large scale works included a parabolic tunnel by Tadao Ando and Tatsuo Miyajima, and Jene Highstein and Steven Holl’s Oblong Voidspace (above), a glowing monolith with a huge interior void open to the sky.
In sweat-bathing-obsessed Finland, the ice sauna, usually constructed with walls built from blocks of lake ice and an insulated timber ceiling, has long been ‘a thing’. What makes them so special? The physics inside are fascinating. With walls made of frozen water, the humidity can hit 100%, creating a microclimate somewhere between a steam bath and a typical Finnish sauna. Bathers get a front-row seat to a spectacular elemental transition: as the walls slowly melt a thick mist of löyly forms in the extreme temperature difference.
We dig into our archives to share a few of our favorite ice builds. Have you seen any we should know about?
DIY ice sauna
Built by a group of five Finnish friends Jaakko, Paulus, Eetu, Heikki, and Tapio looking to supercharge their annual cabin getaway, this isn’t your average backyard sauna. They built the ice sauna directly on a frozen lake next to Jaakko’s cabin in central Finland. Thanks to a brutal cold snap, the ice measured a hefty 17 inches (43cm), easily supporting the sauna’s 18,700-pound (8,500 kg) weight. The blocks were cut from the lake and, after pulling an all-nighter to beat an incoming weather shift, the crew celebrated their first steam the only logical way: by plunging straight into the icy lake-hole they’d just carved out. The team said: “The first sauna was incredible, and all the hard work was definitely worth it. The steam was much more humid than a regular sauna and when the hot air met ice it created mist. The atmosphere inside was magical, with water flowing on the surface of ice and the bubbles trapped inside creating mesmerizing patterns.”
ICEHOTEL
The originator of the frozen hotel concept, the annual ICEHOTEL in Jukkasjärvi, Northern Sweden, follows a carefully developed formula. Two-tonne ice blocks are harvested from the nearby Torne River, when the ice is thickest and clearest in March and stored all summer until the 6-week build commences in November. The basic form of the rooms is consistent – a self-supporting arch for structural strength – before decoration is applied. Blocks are cut or ground and, for more particular shapes, Icehotel makes a mixture of snow and ice they call “snice” to cast in molds. Blocks are joined by slightly melting the facing edges and letting them refreeze. And of course there is a sauna - but it’s not made of ice! Alongside the annual hotel, ICEHOTEL 365 on the same site has 20 suites open year-round, cooled by solar energy in summer, and there are ICEBARS in major global cities.
Cedar & Stone ice sauna
Leaders in Minnesota’s sauna scene, the team at Cedar & Stone couldn’t resist building their own ice sauna. In Minnesotan winters, the cold easily beats that of central Finland. Now an annual event, the crew built the sauna with cedar ceilings and floors, timber benches and 18-inch thick ice walls which allow the Lake Superior sunrise to filter gently through. Watch the build here.
Tampere ice carousel
In March last year Janne Käpylehto and Alex Lembke (who we interviewed for Bathe like a local: Tampere) built a rotating sauna on the ice next to the Tahmela Villa, Lake Pyhäjärvi, Tampere. Janne and Alex cut a huge 30m diameter disc in the 30cm-thick ice and installed a boat motor to make it slowly rotate. They set up tent saunas for bathers to have revolving views of the frozen lake.
Jäätalkoot ice sauna, Aaltosiilo, Oulu
To launch Oulu’s stint as 2026 European Capital of Culture, Aalto Siilo hosted an exhibition of Bernd Nicolaisen’s glacial photography. Naturally, the only appropriate pairing for a gallery of frozen landscapes was an ice sauna. Seppo Mäkinen of Snowhow Oy (who also built the works in The Snow Show, above) led 15 volunteers in constructing the sauna which was only open for a few days. It was built at Finnish architects Alvar and Aino Aalto’s first industrial building – a former a grain silo and factory in Oulu – which is in the process of being reborn as a cultural center and bathhouse.
Arctic SnowHotel
At Finland’s SnowHotel a working sauna is built from snow every year. Directed by Mika Hotakainen, this documentary by The Sauna Channel follows Samuel Aarnio and Julius Laukka through the Arctic SnowHotel, a vast ice castle complex in Rovaniemi, Finnish Lapland. Inside the sauna, the clash of ice and heat triggers 100% humidity, enveloping bathers in a thick fog while the walls slowly melt.
News, happenings and openings
National Geographic looks at the mounting research that is pushing back on the hype over cold plunges
AN Interior interviewed Ali McQuaid Mitchell head of Toronto-based firm Futurestudio, on her process for designing some of North America’s most iconic bath houses
Edinburgh’s Sauna Theatre welcomes some of the world’s leading aufguss artists for theatrical sauna rituals that blend heat, scent, music, and movement into immersive performances. Edinburgh Fringe, August 6-31. Tickets here
Early-bird bookings have opened for the six-day The Sun & Moon Retreat in Lithuania at Midsummer 2027 including pirtis rituals, tree medicine, herb walks, hydrosol crafting, sound and somatics and the Rasos fire ceremony
One last thing
Before wellness became an industry, there was the legendary Sanctuary Spa. Opened in 1977 it famously featured in The Stud (1978), with Joan Collins swinging in one of film’s most memorable pool scenes.
We’d love to hear from you - please send a DM, or email hello@cultureofbathe-ing.com