Ice Hotels

Four buildings raised in snow and taken down again each year. The arch is the only section that stands, so the plans that follow are vaults and domes, with rooms hung off a passage or joined edge to edge, and heated buildings kept separately on the same site.

XVIcehotel

Jukkasjärvi, Sweden

The plan it follows

The winter building is a vault: a broad arched corridor of packed snow with rooms opening from it on both sides, and a hall at one end. The year-round building beside it is a separate structure. The vault is taken down and built again for each season, so the plan is redrawn every year.

Where the form comes from

The section comes from snow construction, where an arch carries load and a flat ceiling does not. Vaulted snow shelters have long been built in this region and elsewhere, and the arrangement of rooms off a single vaulted passage is what that section allows once it is made long enough.

What was kept

The arch and the single central passage return every winter, and rooms are still reached directly from it without secondary corridors. The building keeps its low outline against the river bank, and the entrance stays at the end of the vault rather than at its side.

What was changed

Because the rooms are made new each year, their interiors are given to different makers rather than repeated, so the plan is constant while the rooms are not. Warm buildings for washing, changing and sleeping were placed separately, which lets the vault stay cold throughout.

Worth asking first

Ask which building your booking is in, the seasonal vault or the year-round rooms beside it.

Set in type · October 2028

XVISnowhotel Kirkenes

Kirkenes, Norway

The plan it follows

Snow vaults hold the sleeping rooms, arranged along a passage that runs through the built mass, with a hall for gathering at one end. Alongside them the operator has separate timber cabins, which are ordinary heated buildings and are not part of the snow structure.

Where the form comes from

The vault again comes from snow building, where the arch is the only shape that stands. Grouping the chambers along one passage keeps the mass compact, which matters when the whole structure has to be raised in a season and cannot be heated without destroying itself.

What was kept

The passage and the arched chambers are rebuilt in the same relation each year, and the sleeping rooms are still reached only from inside the snow. Everything that requires warmth stays out of the vault, so the plan of the cold building is uncomplicated.

What was changed

The site around the vaults was developed with the cabins, dining and animal facilities, so the snow building no longer has to serve as the whole of the visit. Guests now use it mainly at night, and the day happens in the heated buildings nearby.

Worth asking first

Ask whether your booking is for the snow rooms or the cabins, and where washing facilities are.

Set in type · October 2028

XVIIIglu-Dorf Engelberg-Titlis

Engelberg, Switzerland

The plan it follows

A village of domes, built at height on the slope and joined to one another at their edges by short passages. There is no corridor spine: each dome is a room, and the group grows by adding domes. The operator builds at other mountain sites as well, and this is one of them.

Where the form comes from

The dome is the snow shelter of high ground, raised in blocks or packed over a form because a hemisphere stands without support and a flat roof does not. Building a settlement by linking several of them is how such shelters have been enlarged when one chamber was not enough.

What was kept

The domes are still separate volumes rather than rooms cut out of one mass, and the links between them are short. The village is rebuilt for the season and taken away afterwards, so the ground it stands on carries nothing through the summer.

What was changed

Some domes were given over to eating and to a bar rather than sleeping, and heated service buildings were placed at the edge of the village. That lets the domes stay cold and lets a guest use the site through an evening without going down the mountain.

Worth asking first

Ask which site your booking is at this season, and how the village is reached from the valley.

Set in type · October 2028

XVIIIHôtel de Glace

Saint-Gabriel-de-Valcartier, Québec, Canada

The plan it follows

The building is a vault with rooms in sequence along it, so a guest passes the doors of other rooms on the way to their own. Public rooms, a chapel and a bar sit at points on the same run. The whole plan is drawn again for each winter and is not repeated exactly.

Where the form comes from

The section is snow construction: arches of packed snow on a formwork, with ice used where a surface has to be hard or clear. The sequence of rooms along a single vault follows what that method allows, since branching a snow structure adds junctions that are harder to raise.

What was kept

The vault and the single line of rooms return each year, and the entrance is still at one end of the run. Ice is still used for the fixed pieces inside the rooms, so the furniture belongs to the structure rather than being brought in.

What was changed

The layout is redesigned annually rather than reproduced, and heated buildings on the site take the washing, changing and daytime uses. That allows the ice building to be planned purely as a night building, with its length and its number of rooms changing from season to season.

Worth asking first

Ask what is included on the site around the ice building, and where guests wash and change.

Set in type · October 2028