Swedish Lapland has given the world three of its most talked-about hotels: one built from river ice every winter, one where the rooms hang in the pine trees, and one that floats on the Lule River. Here is the story behind Icehotel, Treehotel and Arctic Bath – and how to combine them on a journey north.
In this story · 4 sections
Swedish Lapland is northern Sweden's province above and around the Arctic Circle, with mountains, river valleys and pine forest and winters where the Northern Lights can be seen. In thirty years, the region has developed a hotel scene without equal: three buildings that are each an architectural project and a reason to travel. Icehotel is located by the Torne River in Jukkasjärvi outside Kiruna; Treehotel and Arctic Bath are located by the Lule River in and around Harads, in Boden Municipality, a short distance south of the Arctic Circle.
01Icehotel – a hotel that melts
The story begins in 1989, when Japanese ice artists exhibited ice art in Jukkasjärvi. In the spring of 1990, the French artist Jannot Derid held an exhibition in a cylinder-shaped igloo on the Torne River. One night, there were no rooms available in the village, so some visitors had to sleep in the exhibition hall, in sleeping bags on reindeer skins – the first guests. That same year, Yngve Bergkvist founded Icehotel AB.
Every March the hotel takes ice from the frozen Torne River and stores it in a production hall with space for over 10,000 tonnes of ice and 30,000 tonnes of snow; around 1,000 tonnes of ice go towards next year's hotel. The snow is sprayed over large metal moulds, and once frozen, the moulds are pulled away, leaving behind a labyrinth of corridors. Artists from all over the world, around fifty of them selected by a jury, create the suites, the bar, the church and the reception – even the glasses in the bar are made of ice. The hotel is built in five stages from the first weekend in December and is finished in January, with space for over a hundred guests. In spring it melts back into the river. Since 2017 there has also been a part that is open all year round with the help of refrigeration technology.
The village is also home to Jukkasjärvi church, built around 1607–1608 and the village's oldest building, known for its carved altarpiece by Bror Hjorth. The name Jukkasjärvi comes from Northern Sámi and roughly means meeting lake – the place was a Sámi marketplace.
02Treehotel – the rooms in the pine tree tops
In Harads, Britta Jonsson-Lindvall and Kent Lindvall have run a guesthouse in the parish's old care home from the 1930s since 2004. The idea for hotel rooms in the trees came after filmmaker Jonas Selberg Augustsén built a treehouse fourteen metres above the ground in 2007 for the film Trädälskaren (The Tree Lover). In 2010, they opened the first five rooms in a 1.4-hectare area of forest, fixed to the pine trunks with fittings that are adjusted as the trees grow.
Each room is designed by its own architect. The Mirrorcube, a cube with four-metre sides clad in mirrored glass, is designed by Bolle Tham and Martin Videgård; The Blue Cone by Thomas Sandell; The Cabin by Mårten and Gustav Cyrén; Bird's Nest and The Ufo by Bertil Harström. Later additions were Dragonfly by Sami Rintala in 2013, 7th Room by Snøhetta in 2016 – ten metres above the ground – and Biosphere by Bjarke Ingels Group in 2022.
03Arctic Bath – a bird's nest on the river
The idea for Arctic Bath was born at the same time as Treehotel opened in 2010, developed by the same people: first a glass-cube sauna on a raft. Bertil Harström, who designed Treehotel's Bird's Nest, took over the idea and in 2013, together with Johan Kauppi, designed a round main building reminiscent of a bird's nest, which alternately floats and freezes in place in the Lule River depending on the season. The hotel opened on 15 January 2020, downstream from the bridges at Bodträskfors.
The round house contains a restaurant, spa, sauna and an open-air cold bath. Floating double rooms of 24 square metres are accessed via floating walkways, and on land stand cabins on stilts amongst the vegetation, designed by Annkathrin Lundqvist. The materials are wood, stone, leather and textile.
04How to combine them
Treehotel and Arctic Bath are located in the same area by the Lule River and can be combined on the same trip. Icehotel is further north, just over 20 kilometres east of Kiruna, Sweden's northernmost town. If you want to head into the mountains, Abisko National Park, established in 1909 by Lake Torne träsk, is in the same municipality; that's where the Kungsleden trail begins or ends. The Northern Lights can be seen throughout the region during the winter months.
More destinations can be found among Metro Mode's destinations. If your journey north starts in Stockholm, stay at the Grand Hôtel opposite the Royal Palace or at Ett Hem in Lärkstaden.