The Icehotel (styled as ICEHOTEL) is a hotel built each year with snow and ice in the village of Jukkasjärvi, in northern Sweden, about 17 kilometres (11 mi) from Kiruna. It is the world’s first ice hotel. After its first opening in 1990, the hotel has been built 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 (23 °F).
When completed, the hotel features a bar, church, main hall, reception area, plus rooms and suites for over 100 guests. The hotel hosts also an ice restaurant. The furniture is sculpted blocks of ice in the form of chairs and beds. The thick walls, floor and ceiling are made of ice. Even the beds, the fittings and decoration are carved from ice. No two rooms are the same; the rooms are unique works of art. At the Icehotel the beds are bedded with reindeer furs and people are given special equipment to use while sleeping in the hotel. The guests sleep in polar-tested sleeping bags. There is no heating and the bedroom temperatures are constantly around 23F (-5C). There’s no plumbing at the hotel, but there’s a sauna that is run on the premises of the Icehotel with hot tub outdoors.
The ice suites do not have any bathroom facilities but bathrooms for guests are found in a warm building close by. There is also warm accommodation available next to the hotel. The Icehotel in Jukkasjärvi is known to be the biggest hotel of ice and snow in the world, spanning over some 6,000 square metres (64,600 sq ft). Each suite is unique and the architecture of the hotel is changed each year, as it is rebuilt from scratch. Each year, artists submit their ideas for suites, and a jury selects about 50 artists to create the church, Absolut Icebar, reception, main hall and suites. When spring comes, everything melts away and returns to the Torne River. The Icehotel only exists between December and April, and has been listed as one of the Seven Wonders of Sweden. The northern hemisphere’s aurora borealis can be seen during the winter month in the location.
Each year the ICEHOTEL receives applications from artists around the world to design the imaginative suites. In 2013 over 200 requests were submitted by different artists with different qualifications – including theatre, structural design, camerawork and interior design. The artists will start the work in Jukkasjarvi starting each year in November to build the suites. When the temperature drops and the snow guns start humming on the Torne River shore, usually in mid-November, the building process begins. The snow is sprayed on huge inverted catenary shaped steel forms and allowed to freeze. After a couple of days, the forms are removed, leaving a maze of free-standing corridors of snow. In the corridors, dividing walls are built in order to create rooms and suites. Ice blocks are then transported into the hotel, where selected artists start creating the art and design of the perishable material. The Icehotel in Jukkasjärvi opens in phases. The first phase opens in the beginning of December. For each week, another section of the hotel opens up for visitors and guests until the beginning of January. At this time, the entire construction is completed.
[caption id="attachment_229068" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Map of the "Heartland Theory", as published by Halford Mackinder in 1904[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]"The Geographical Pivot of History" is an article submitted by Halford John Mackinder in 1904 to the Royal Geographical Society that advances his heartland theory. In this article, Mackinder extended the scope of geopolitical analysis to encompass the entire globe. According to Mackinder, the Earth's land surface was divisible into:
The World-Island, comprisin...
