See inside the world's first permanent ice hotel

Image 1 of 6

Each winter for almost three decades, an Icehotel has been created in northernmost Sweden. Dubbed "the original pop-up" by CNN, it is designed afresh and built anew using 5,000 tonnes of water frozen from the Torne River – and then allowed to melt away in the summer months.

But all that is about to change. The owners have unveiled a new building – the Icehotel 365 – which will be open all year round and kept cold by sustainable energy.

The 20-suite complex, built from river ice and snow, was created in response to demand from guests who wanted to visit during the summer and autumn months.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Deluxe suites come equipped with their own private saunas, while the hotel boasts a bar offering champagne and cocktails and even an art gallery filled with icy sculptures.

Situated 124 miles above the Arctic Circle in Jukkasjarvi, the Icehotel 365 gets almost permanent sunshine during the summer, enabling it to use solar panels to harvest enough energy to keep the building frozen at a chilly -5C, a temperature that, the owners say, preserves the ice while giving a "comfortable" climate in which to reside.

The 130,000kWh of energy produced per year is enough to power other buildings, too, including restaurants and offices.

It's a far cry from the hotel's first creation in 1992, when it was "little more than a well-crafted igloo", says the Conde Nast Traveler.

Unlike its temporary counterpart, the Icehotel 365 has exterior walls made of concrete and covered in a mixture of ice and snow. Steel pipes have also been drilled into the freezing permafrost in order to keep inside temperatures low.

But lovers of the original need not despair - the seasonal building, famed for its vaulting structures, will still be reconceived by artists and rebuilt every year, offering guests spectacular Northern Lights displays, reindeer sightings and the silent majesty of the Arctic.