Ice Hotel’s Anniversary, Quebec

Just until the 4th of April, the somewhat eccentric Ice Hotel in Quebec will celebrate its 10th anniversary. One of a kind, the hotel stands frozen at only 30 minutes from Quebec City and is proving to be increasingly popular with tourists from all over the globe who come to revel in the cold climate, going snowboarding, snow-shoeing and even dog-sledging in the region.

The Ice Hotel is the world’s largest hotel made of ice and includes an ice chapel, thirty-six rooms, suites, an ice cafe, a slide and an ice bar. Not surprisingly, the building is made entirely from snow and ice, with four-foot thick walls for insulation, and keeps a temperature of between 23 and 28 degrees Fahrenheit.

Glasses are carved from ice, beds are lined with fur and oxygen is removed from the ice blocks, which accounts for their transparent and rather ghostly appearance.

The building is redesigned and reconstructed each year, using around 15,000 tons of snow and 500 tons of ice and designs involve the participation of Canada’s university students, who include a fair number of up-and-coming architects.

The winter festival is an event that welcomes innovative thinking and unites together participants in sculpture, architecture and ice painting.

2009 saw the Ephemeral Architecture Contest take place, which required architecture students from the Universities of Laval, UQAM, McGill, and Montreal, in conjunction with architects Brière and Gilbert&Associates, to come up with a novel design for an Ice Hotel Suite.

For its 10th anniversary, the hotel will take on a new appearance yet again, this time paying homage to its Nordic origins. However, organizers are keeping all details of the event close to their chests, melting the hearts of keen observers as secrets are gradually revealed.

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by Albertine Fox
Gloobbi Architecture

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