This year’s icy ice hotel

Posted on December 25, 2015 by David Brussat
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The ice hotel in Jukkasjarvi, Swedish Lapland (icehotel.com; no fotog cited)

Some perversity inspires me this morning (Merry Christmas! though it’s in the 60s) to take readers to the Ice Hotel at Jukkasjärvi, 200 miles North of the Arctic Circle. My wife, Victoria, has often expressed a desire to stay there, an idea I annually poo-poo with fervor, and yet the prospect is not without its seasonal enchantment (most years). A classic package for two runs SEK 11 305. No dollar translation on the website. Well, if you have to ask …

A new ice hotel is built every year in a different design. One year it was modeled after Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. It is built, occupied for three months, then it melts.

This National Geographic video paints the place in what seems to me to be unusually stark and unpleasant tones. The website for the hotel displays it much more alluringly in still photography. The NG vid spends a lot of time on the ice glasses produced for drinks, but very little time on the beds in the hotel’s suites. Are they made of ice, too? It appears so. What about the bed sheets and covers? They seem to be furry. Are there prizes for which couple melts their bed fastest? I’m sorry, but these are issues facing the nation (fortunately, that nation is Sweden).

Here are some photos, actually screenshots, from the hotel website:

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About David Brussat

This blog was begun in 2009 as a feature of the Providence Journal, where I was on the editorial board and wrote a weekly column of architecture criticism for three decades. Architecture Here and There fights the style wars for classical architecture and against modern architecture, no holds barred. History Press asked me to write and in August 2017 published my first book, "Lost Providence." I am now writing my second book. My freelance writing on architecture and other topics addresses issues of design and culture locally and globally. I am a member of the board of the New England chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, which bestowed an Arthur Ross Award on me in 2002. I work from Providence, R.I., where I live with my wife Victoria, my son Billy and our cat Gato. If you would like to employ my writing and editing to improve your work, please email me at my consultancy, dbrussat@gmail.com, or call 401.351.0457. Testimonial: "Your work is so wonderful - you now enter my mind and write what I would have written." - Nikos Salingaros, mathematician at the University of Texas, architectural theorist and author of many books.
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4 Responses to This year’s icy ice hotel

  1. tenthousandflowers's avatar tenthousandflowers says:
    December 30, 2015 at 5:29 pm

    Great pictures, one day I will get to stay there, I have made a a promise to myself. Thanks for sharing.
    http://lostinstoblog.wordpress.com/

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  2. Ken Orenstein's avatar Ken Orenstein says:
    December 25, 2015 at 5:04 pm

    In round numbers there are 8.46 kronor to the dollar.

    Ken Orenstein via iPhone

    >

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  3. Paul Lancia's avatar Paul Lancia says:
    December 25, 2015 at 12:20 pm

    Happy Christmas.
    The ice hotel in Sweden is entirely made from ice. From the drink glasses to the beds, everything. Quite a process. It would be nice to visit for a night or two.

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