Carved snow and ice corridor lit from within at a winter ice hotel

Section

Ice Hotels 4 hotels

What is in here

Two blocks per hotel: how the building lets the outside in, and how it keeps the outside out.

Four winter buildings made of snow and ice and raised again every season. Here the envelope carries light but allows no opening at all, so openness has to happen on the site around the building. What does not belong here: hotels with an ice bar or one cold room, and permanent buildings that simply stand in a cold place.

15 · Jukkasjärvi, Sweden

Icehotel

A winter building rebuilt every season from Torne river ice, standing beside the river that supplies it

How it opens

Ice for the walls comes from a few hundred metres away, and the building stands on the riverbank where that ice is cut, so the structure is a seasonal state of the landscape rather than an import. Blocks of clear ice pass daylight, and in the low winter sun the walls take colour from outside without any opening at all.

How it shuts

There are no windows and no glazing, because an opening in a wall of ice is a weakness in it. Doors are heavy and insulated, corridors are wide but blind, and every sleeping chamber is held at a stable temperature below freezing. Sound stops at the walls; the outside is excluded completely by the same substance that admits light.

What that makes it

This is a building in which openness and closure are the same material doing two different things at once. Ice transmits light and blocks everything else, so the interior is bright, silent and entirely cut off at once.

One breath

Carved ice corridor inside the winter building of Icehotel at Jukkasjärvi, Sweden

The practical bitSleeping quarters stay below freezing and the season is short, so treat clothing and the calendar as part of the arrangement.

Sources dated · August 2026

16 · Québec, Canada

Hôtel de Glace

The one ice building of its kind in North America, raised each winter and gone again by spring

How it opens

Snow vaults let a diffuse light through, so the corridors are lit without lamps for much of the day. The building is entered straight from the ground with no lobby between inside and out, and warm service buildings stand separately on the same site, which keeps the ice structure attached to the winter landscape it belongs to.

How it shuts

The envelope is compacted snow over arched forms, thick enough that no opening is possible in it. Temperature inside is held below freezing whatever the weather does outside, sound is absorbed almost entirely, and there is no view in any direction. Once past the door a guest has no contact with the exterior at all.

What that makes it

What follows is an interior that has light but no outlook. The building keeps the season out by being made of it, and the ordinary distinction between a wall and a window simply does not apply here.

One breath

Vaulted snow corridor with carved ice detail at Hôtel de Glace near Québec City

The practical bitThe structure exists only in the cold months and the warm buildings are separate, so plan clothing for moving between them.

Sources dated · August 2026

17 · Kirkenes, Norway

Kirkenes Snowhotel

A snow building beside a fjord in the far north, working since 2006 through the darkest months

How it opens

The site is the open element: a shoreline on the fjord, with timber cabins, kennels and open ground around the snow structure. Guests spend most of their waking time outside on that ground, and the surrounding sky is the reason people come north in the first place. Nothing on the site blocks the view of the water.

How it shuts

The snow building has thick blind walls and a single line of entry. Each chamber is closed with a hanging rather than a door, and the temperature stays under freezing at all hours. There is no glazing anywhere in the structure, so the fjord that dominates the site is completely absent once you are inside.

What that makes it

The two halves of the visit are therefore opposites. Outside is horizon, weather and darkness; inside is a sealed white chamber in which nothing changes, and the site works by moving guests between the two.

One breath

Snow corridor with carved walls at Kirkenes Snowhotel beside a fjord in northern Norway

The practical bitWinter days this far north are very short, so arrange outdoor time and transfers around the light rather than the clock.

Sources dated · August 2026

18 · Zermatt, Switzerland

Iglu-Dorf

A village of snow domes built high above the valley floor and rebuilt from scratch every winter

How it opens

Everything social happens outdoors on the snow terrace between the domes, at an altitude where the mountains stand clear on three sides. Guests arrive on the mountain rather than in a town, and the walk between one dome and the next is made in the open, which keeps the alpine setting present all evening.

How it shuts

A dome has one low entry tunnel and no other opening. The curved snow shell holds a steady temperature regardless of wind, and the geometry that makes it stand up is the same geometry that forbids a window. Inside, the mountain is inaudible and invisible, and the shell muffles the weather completely.

What that makes it

The village works as a set of closed cells on an open shelf. Nothing is enclosed except sleeping, and the effect of that is a night divided sharply between a wide alpine terrace and a small white room.

One breath

Snow domes of Iglu-Dorf on a high alpine slope above Zermatt, Switzerland

The practical bitIt is reached by mountain transport at altitude, so allow for the ascent, the cold and a short weather window.

Sources dated · August 2026

Open and closed are two ways of describing architecture, not two grades. We take what published sources state about a building and put it in our own words; the month at the foot of an entry is when we last read those sources through.

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