Icehotel 36 has opened in Swedish Lapland, revealing a playable ice piano and new art suites created by international designers. Jenny Southan reports

Icehotel 36, the newest winter version of the world’s original ice hotel, is welcoming guests to sleep among rooms and halls sculpted entirely from ice and snow. Built each year in the village of Jukkasjärvi, the hotel is created fresh every winter using ice taken from the nearby Torne River, before melting back into the river in spring.

This year’s Icehotel 36 features art created by 33 artists from 12 countries, including British designer Peter Hobbs. One of the main talking points is a full-scale grand piano made entirely of ice.

The instrument will be played throughout the winter season, making it both a working object and a piece of temporary art. The piano was assembled inside the hotel and tested only at the final stages of construction, with the team unsure until the last moment whether it would hold together.

Guests enter the winter hotel through its large ice doors into the Main Hall, known as Cathedral Grove. The space stretches for around 30 metres and is shaped to resemble a forest, with ice forms reaching up to the ceiling. Nearby is the Ceremony Hall, called Echo, which is used for weddings and small gatherings and is also open to visitors who want to sit quietly among the ice sculptures.

Icehotel 36 covers around 2,800 sqm and took six weeks to build. Construction began after ice was harvested from the Torne River in March and stored until the hotel could be shaped last month. A total of 89 people were involved in the build, including artists, builders and lighting designers, working under the direction of creative director Luca Roncoroni.

Roncoroni says: “I am very proud of everyone who contributed to Icehotel 36. Some of the artists came with years of experience and others never worked in snow and ice before. Thanks to hard work and a positive spirit we managed to get everything ready on time.

"Another thing we’re especially proud of is the grand piano made of ice. Assembling it was both nerve-racking and magical — we didn’t know if it would hold until the very last minute. Now we look forward to hearing music echo through the corridors of Icehotel.”

The winter hotel includes twelve art suites, each designed around a different idea. Themes range from soap bubbles and storm winds to black holes and frozen libraries. Hobbs worked with French stonemason Coralie Quincey on the Soap Bubbles suite, which features a child’s face emerging from one wall and blowing ice bubbles across the room, with sculpted bubbles appearing to land on the bed.

Alongside the art suites, Icehotel 36 also includes 20 ice rooms, an outdoor art installation at the entrance and decorative ice projects throughout the building.

Guests who prefer not to sleep in the cold can stay in warm hotel rooms or cabins, or choose Icehotel 365, the part of the property that stays open all year. This section includes 18 art and deluxe ice suites, kept at around -5°C, as well as an ice gallery and an ice bar.

Food at Icehotel focuses on local produce from the surrounding region. At the main restaurant, guests can try a four-course ice menu where some dishes are served on blocks of river ice, using ingredients such as reindeer, Kalix vendace roe, sea buckthorn and cloudberry. The Veranda restaurant offers a longer tasting menu inspired by the eight Sámi seasons.

The hotel also runs a range of outdoor activities, including dog sledding, snowmobile tours, ice sculpting and sauna rituals. Many visitors come to experience life north of the Arctic Circle for the first time, often combining their stay with chances to see the Northern Lights.

Icehotel has been welcoming visitors since 1989 and has now received more than one million guests over 36 years. Alongside the hotel in Sweden, the brand has expanded its ice bar concept to cities including Stockholm and Copenhagen. It has now confirmed plans to open Icebar by Icehotel London next year, bringing a version of the ice experience to the UK capital.