Every winter the building is quarried, carved and let go.

THE MAKING — The village is a cluster of packed-snow igloos raised each winter on a plateau in the SkiWelt, with timber doors set into the snow and banners marking the rows. Interiors are cut from the same packed mass: sleeping platforms, an ice bar, carved reliefs. Nothing is a permanent building. The surrounding lifts and the alpine hotels belong to the ski area and are not part of the igloos.

WHOSE HANDS — The igloos are the work of a seasonal crew that blows and packs snow over forms, then cuts the forms away and finishes the inside by hand. Ice for the bar and the sculpture is harvested and carved on site. The village has been built at Brixen im Thale for a run of winters; the crew and the carvers change with the season rather than belonging to a year-round workshop.

MADE AGAIN — The whole village is made again. Packed snow is produced, formed, occupied and left to the thaw. Plan, number of igloos and the carved work change from winter to winter because there is no structure to return to. Timber doors, banners and the service tents are the only parts that can be stored and brought back.

MADE ONCE — What persists is the site in the ski area and the method: snow packed over forms at this altitude, for this length of winter. The surrounding hotels and lifts are the permanent neighbours. When the village is not built, the plateau is just snow.

WORTH ASKING — Ask whether overnight igloos are being built this winter, and how the sleeping platforms are insulated.

Checked against published material, September 2026.

THE MAKING — The village stands just below Rotenboden, at about 2,700 metres on the Gornergrat, and is rebuilt every winter from packed snow. Igloos up to seven metres across are formed over inflatable moulds; the moulds are deflated and pulled out, and the interiors are carved. A handful of overnight igloos, a bar and carved rooms make up the settlement. In spring it melts.

WHOSE HANDS — Iglu-Dorf is a company that builds the same way at several alpine sites; Zermatt has been one of them since the winter of 2004/2005. The crew packs the snow, the carvers cut the rooms, and the overnight igloos are fitted with sleeping bags and skins rather than with furniture that would have to be stored. Access is by the Gornergrat railway and a walk from Rotenboden, which is part of how the village is made as well as how it is reached.

MADE AGAIN — Every winter is a new building. Forms, packing, carving and the plan of the village are done from nothing on the same patch of mountain. Carved subjects change. What is reused is the method, the inflatable moulds and the knowledge of that slope, not last year's walls.

MADE ONCE — The site below Rotenboden, the view to the Matterhorn and the fact that Zermatt itself is car-free are fixed. The village cannot sit anywhere else on this mountain at this height without the railway. That arrangement has been repeated each winter since the first season here.

WORTH ASKING — Ask how the igloo is reached from Zermatt in the evening, and what sleeping equipment is provided inside.

Checked against published material, September 2026.

THE MAKING — The castle is a seasonal structure of packed snow and ice on Kemi's waterfront: walls, towers, tunnels and carved figures raised on the same ground each winter. A mammoth and other sculptures are part of the build, not ornaments added later. Beside it, the SnowCastle area now also holds a year-round indoor snow room, SnowExperience365, kept frozen inside an insulated building, and glass-roofed villas for sleeping that are not made of snow.

WHOSE HANDS — The winter castle is packed and carved by a seasonal crew working for the operator of the SnowCastle area. Snow is produced and formed on site; ice is cut and sculpted. The indoor 365 room is the opposite job: an insulated shell and a refrigeration plant, with ice sculpture replaced as it sublimates. The glass villas are timber and glass, built once, and belong to a different manufacture from the castle.

MADE AGAIN — The outdoor castle is demolished by the weather every spring and built again. Sculpture, plan and the line of the walls change with the crew and the winter. The indoor snow room is recarved as the ice loses definition. The villas and the main building are maintained as ordinary construction.

MADE ONCE — The waterfront site in Kemi and the decision to keep a snow castle here as a repeating winter work are the permanent part. The 365 building is the one structure that holds snow through summer, and it was built once. The castle itself has no permanent drawing that survives the thaw.

WORTH ASKING — Ask whether the visit is the outdoor winter castle or the indoor 365 room, and whether sleeping is in the glass villas rather than in snow.

Checked against published material, September 2026.

THE MAKING — The village is a spread of timber cabins with glass roofs, set among pines for a view of the sky. The cabins are heated, insulated buildings on foundations, not snow structures. Glass in the roof is the opening the building is organised around. Snow lies on the timber; it is not the wall.

WHOSE HANDS — The cabins are manufactured as timber-and-glass units and set on the site, then connected to services. Local contractors handle foundations, snow clearance and the running of heat and water through a winter that does not pause. The glass specification — thermal, able to take snow load — is the specialised part of the manufacture.

MADE AGAIN — Glass, seals and heating are the repeating work: snow is cleared, units are serviced, interiors are refurbished. The timber shell is stained and repaired. Cabins can be added to the same tracks without rebuilding the first ones. Nothing here is packed from snow or left to melt.

MADE ONCE — The forest clearing, the orientation of the glass to the sky and the decision to sleep in a heated cabin rather than in snow were set when the village was laid out. Those cabins stay through summer. The aurora is the reason for the glass, not a material in the building.

WORTH ASKING — Ask whether the cabin's glass roof can be covered, and where the heated washing rooms sit relative to the unit.

Checked against published material, September 2026.