History of the Ice Sculpture Hotel

The person who created this new concept of ice sculpture is a Swedish man named Berryquist. He is tall, witty, and a person who has a good sense of fashion. He was originally an engineer who came to Jukkasgarwi in the 1970s to assess the environment around a large iron mine. At that time, this small village was lifeless, with only five to six hundred people. Most of them were miners. They seemed indifferent to the beautiful scenery of the ice field. But Berryquist was different. After discovering such scenic spots, he immediately quit his job, bought an old house, and started a hotel and restaurant business, specifically attracting people who came here for fishing, hiking and rubber boating. Drifter.

But during the freezing season, which is every winter, Berryquist found that his hotel was deserted. Just when he was in trouble, a friend suggested that he build an igloo as a venue for an unconventional art exhibition competition. Berryquist absorbed this idea, but he did not follow the Eskimos in building an igloo. The traditional method of building an igloo is to dig out large amounts of snow from hard-packed snowdrifts. He set up a wooden frame on the snow, then shoveled a large amount of snow and piled it on top. Then he sprayed water on the snow with a faucet. This method worked very well. Two days later, Berryquist knocked off the wooden frame, and a 60-square-meter crystal clear igloo was formed. In 1989, an international art exhibition was held in this igloo. The event was an unprecedented success, and Berryquist had a lightbulb in his mind.

He hired a group of snow shovelers to build a 250-square-meter dome house, built an ice bed inside, laid out reindeer mats, air mattresses and sleeping bags, and invited a few friends to join him. He tested whether such an igloo could be used as a novel residence, and the test results were very exciting: No matter how cold the outside world is, the temperature in the igloo almost stays at about minus 6°C. If appropriate bedding is covered, People can definitely enjoy the ice bed. Soon after, Berryquist abandoned the single egg-shaped form to accommodate the needs of different visitors. By 1993, his igloo construction had become more mechanized, with movable steel frames replacing wooden frames, and forklifts and snowblowers replacing snowplows.

Berliquist is building more and more igloos and the area is getting larger and larger, which naturally requires sufficient lighting. At first, the hotel used candles, but this was not a good solution because candlelight could not create various lighting effects. This ice sculpture hotel uses an ingenious lighting concept, using lamps produced by Osram, a subsidiary of Siemens, to achieve color contrast and light and dark effects. For example, orange filter lights are installed under the beds in all rooms. Fluorescent lights create a relaxing atmosphere; artworks such as ice sculptures and paintings are illuminated by halogen lamps carefully placed behind them; in the "ice chapel", fluorescent lights with blue filters are used to create a cozy atmosphere Cozy atmosphere.