page_title: Icehotel (Jukkasjärvi)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Icehotel (Jukkasjärvi) / History
caption_attribution_description: Main hall in ICEHOTEL Jukkasjärvi, Sweden, 2007. Sculptures by Jörgen Westin.
context_page_description: The Icehotel is a hotel rebuilt each year with snow and ice in the village of Jukkasjärvi, in northern Sweden, about 17 kilometres from Kiruna. It is the world's first ice hotel.
  After its first opening in 1990, the hotel has been rebuilt each year from December to April.
  The hotel, including the chairs and beds, is constructed from snow and ice blocks taken from the nearby Torne River. Artists are invited to create different rooms and decorations made by ice. Besides bedrooms, there is a bar, with glasses made of ice and an ice chapel that is popular with marrying couples. The structure remains below freezing, around −5 °C.
context_section_description: In 1989, Japanese ice artists visited the area and created an exhibition of ice art. In Spring 1990, French artist Jannot Derid held an exhibition in a cylinder-shaped igloo in the same area. One night there were no rooms available in the town, so some of the visitors asked for permission to spend the night in the igloo at the exhibition hall. They slept in the igloo in sleeping bags on top of reindeer skins, and were the first guests of the "hotel".
caption: Jukkasjärvi Icehotel interior. Sculptures by Jörgen Westin
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