Whether one is looking for midnight sun or northern lights, one of the least-disputed places to do so is at Sweden’s ICEHOTEL. Now, the legendary all-ice building hosts a new suite designed by the prince of Sweden to paradoxically celebrate the country’s Midsummer Festival.
Just as the hotel, made entirely of snow and ice, has had to be rebuilt every year since its inception in 1989, Prince Carl Philip’s suite reflects that brevity with flowers and summer decorations encased in ice.
Called Midsummer Night’s Dream, the walls and blocks of the suite contain colorful floral decorations, while a stunning chandelier of ice and flowers gives light to the ethereal space.
“Well, what better way to show the true character of the ice than to encapsulate the most delicate and beautiful Swedish midsummer flowers in an arctic environment? For us Swedes, midsummer, and especially midsummer’s night, is filled with myth and legend,” the Prince and his business partner Oscar Kylber, who helped design the suite, said in a statement.
The layers of metaphor are as thick as winter snow drifts in the town of Jukkasjärvi, 120 miles inside the Arctic Circle where ICEHOTEL is located.
Like the beautiful summer flowers used in the design, the suite in all its beauty will last through the season, only to vanish and leave nothing but memories at its end.
The merry flowers mirror the happy Swedes, a country which ranks sixth on the global happiness scale, and which must endure its northern reaches being essentially encased in ice for six months of the year.
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Kylber and the Prince were two of 32 artists selected to make this year’s ICEHOTEL, as they run a design firm that boasts clients like Hästens and Georg Jensen.
ICEHOTEL consists of 24 rooms, 12 artistically-rendered suites, and a ceremonial hall; this time around at least, as it changes every year.
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The company behind it runs the winter hotel, rebuilt every year, a traditional hotel and chalet, and ICEHOTEL 365, which features artistic suites and buildings carved out of ice that are kept frozen during summer with a solar-powered refrigerator.
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