A room at this year’s Icehotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden, has a winter theme with a difference – a frozen recreation of the laboratory of Dr Frankenstein.
It was designed by Pinpin Studio to look like the place where the legendary “monster” was created.
Christian Strömqvist and Karl-Johan Ekeroth used nothing but ice and snow to create the room modelled on “the laboratory of a crazy scientist” for the twenty-fourth edition of the Icehotel, which is built afresh every year on a site 200km north of the Arctic Circle.
Entitled “It’s Alive”, the hotel suite contains the monster’s bed, along with computer machinery, Tesla electricty coils and giant laboratory beakers.
“We thought that the story of Frankenstein’s monster would be interesting to interpret in ice and snow,” Strömqvist said. “There is no monster or scientist in the room, so it’s up to the visitors to decide what role they want to take. We just make the scenography.”
The designers used blocks of ice from the Torne River to build the furniture, while chainsaws and ice chisel moulded the blocks into shape.
The walls were etched to create the impression of brickwork and a door, while a hatch in the ceiling was added to symbolise an opening where lightening can enter and wake the creature as it lay on the slab.
LED lighting animates the space without causing the ice to melt.
“If you push the button, all other lights go off and the strobes create the effect of a big electric power blast,” said the designer.