icehotel 35 – international design competition

Icehotel - YOUR CANVAS

Thank you for all your mails and for the overwhelming interest you show about Icehotel, and about the process leading up to next winter. We can now confirm that we will build Icehotel 35 in November 2024 and that the International Design Competition is open for application. We look forward to seeing your creative and innovative ideas. Below you will find all the information you need to submit a contribution to this year´s design competition for Icehotel 35. We are confident that this decision will ensure the high quality experience Icehotel is known for, and will preserve the tradition of working with art and design by international professionals.

For the 35th Anniversary Icehotel will be reborn in a completely new guise; be part of it! This hotel is more than rooms and beds; it is a unique and ephemeral art project made of snow and ice. By tradition, the actual making of Icehotel is organised as an international symposium, whereby the selected creatives gather in Jukkasjärvi to build rooms which are sensorial experiences, original and unique art pieces. At Icehotel we work with premium natural ice from the Torne River, one of the last rivers in Europe untouched by human civilization.

Jukkasjärvi is located on the shore of the Torne river, 17 kilometers outside Kiruna. The name comes from a Sámi word that roughly translates to “meeting place by the water”. With its impressive length of 520 kilometers, the Torne river runs from the ancient mountains in the west down to the coast in the east, where it flows out into the Bay of Bothnia. As the largest of Sweden’s four national rivers it is rare – indeed, unique. One of the last untouched rivers in Europe. A wild river. It’s the Torne River that provides Icehotel with its ice in winter – and in the summer when the hotel melts, the water returns to its source. For us the natural beauty and unique story of each individual block of ice provides inspiration that can never be found in artificially frozen ice. Weather in Jukkasjärvi in November and December can be extremely cold with temperatures reaching below -30° C.