A 30-metre inverted S-shaped snow structure created in collaboration with Finnish artist Osmo Rauhala for The Snow Show in Kemi, Finland — videos of Central Park ice skaters projected onto glass revolving doors inside an ephemeral Arctic architecture whose own viewing mechanism gradually melts it from within.
Absolute Zero: A Light House of Temporality was created for The Snow Show, an international exhibition of architect-artist collaborations realized in snow and ice in Kemi, Finland, near the Arctic Circle. Curated by Lance Fung, the exhibition paired leading architects with visual artists in what Fung called blind dates — each team charged with creating a habitable structure built from a minimum of eighty percent ice or snow. Asymptote collaborated with Finnish painter and video artist Osmo Rauhala.
Structure and Form
The installation took the form of a thirty-metre inverted S-shaped snow structure reminiscent of two igloos joined together, with entrances on opposite sides at the tails of the S-curve. The monumental forms were carved from compacted snow, their surfaces shaped into sweeping curves and faceted planes that caught the low Arctic light. Inside each chamber, videos of people ice skating on an artificial rink in New York’s Central Park were projected onto glass revolving doors positioned at the center of the space.
Urban Metaphor
The revolving doors served as a metaphor for urban life — what the architects described as a turbine run by the flow of wandering people, a threshold between formal structures and the unpredictable diversity of life, making inner space an outer space again and again. The juxtaposition of metropolitan imagery within a remote Arctic shelter created a dialogue between the kinetic energy of the city and the stillness of the polar landscape.
Built-in Impermanence
The heat generated by the video projection equipment was deliberately designed to gradually melt the interior while the sun worked on the exterior — building impermanence into the concept. The act of viewing the art was also the mechanism of its dissolution, embedding temporality into the structure’s very existence. The subtitle — A Light House of Temporality — signaled this engagement with ephemerality: a lighthouse whose light also consumes it.
Exhibition Context
The Snow Show brought together an extraordinary roster of collaborations: Zaha Hadid with Anish Kapoor, Tadao Ando with Yoko Ono, Steven Holl with Vito Acconci, Diller + Scofidio with Rachel Whiteread, Arata Isozaki with Anselm Kiefer, and others — seventeen teams from twenty-seven countries working at the intersection of architecture, art, and extreme environment.
