Over the last few weeks, 42 artists from around the world have used 1,600 tonnes of ice and snow from the nearby frozen Torne River to create the 25th pop-up Icehotel. This season’s hotel features 16 suites based on concepts such as love and the changing seasons. Borderland, by Thomas Czajkowski and Eryk Marks, was inspired by the folk art that decorated typical wooden houses in eastern Poland, where the artists grew up. The carved wall decorations are based on traditional wooden ornaments that decorated the house facades. • All photos by Paulina Holmgren, courtesy of Discover the World

The two sculptures in the Two as One suite represent a pair of lovers while the bed bed itself is ‘an interpretation of the moment when the lovers meet, when everything else disappears and the present moment is the only thing that matters’, says Spanish artist José Carlos Cabello Millán.

If you look closely at the carved ice pillars in the Spring suite, by Dutch artists Wilfred Stijger and Edith van der Wetering, you will see the shape of tree trunks under the ice. Their silhouettes are clearer by each day, as the ice that encloses them becomes clearer the closer we get to spring.

This year’s bar appears to have risen out of an enormous ice explosion, sending ice and snow splashing up the walls. For the first time, the bar has been inaugurated in a dome-shaped structure adjacent to the hotel and also boasts sofas and a dance floor.

The 7,5°Rø suite is divided into 12 frames, each leaning against the one in front at an angle of 7.5 degrees. The gradient creates a spiral-like twist and an illusion of infinity. The artists – Wolfgang Lachow, Sebastian Scheller and Anja Kilian – were inspired by the Danish astronomer Ole Christensen Rømer, who invented a thermometer that measures in Rø units. According to this scale, water turns to ice at 7.5 degrees Rø.

In the ‘Abject Beauty’ suite, five detailed and anatomical sculptures grow out of the walls. Swedish artists Lotta Lampa and Julia Gamborg Nielsen wanted to create ‘a world within the world. A world full of patterns and shapes that fill the ceiling and walls of the room and create a captivating scene.’ A four-night Christmas break (23-27 December) with Discover the World costs from £1,262pp including flights and one-night in an ice room and three nights’ B&B in a ‘warm’ room or chalet