Solar Egg

The northern part of Swedish Lapland is a frigid region with no lack of saunas, but none so unique as a hot room once housed within a giant, shiny golden egg. Originally erected in Kiruna, one of the northernmost towns in Sweden, the Solar Egg stands 15 feet tall. In the middle of a field of snow, it reflected the white expanse on 69 golden panes of glass. The egg’s interior was a piping hot sauna where visitors could bask in the heat, relax, and talk.

You enter the surreal structure through a golden staircase, which leads to a small circular sauna that seats eight people. It's heated by a wood-burning, human heart-shaped stove in the center, which reaches temperatures of 167 to 185 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Solar Egg was created by Swedish artist duo Bigert & Bergström and was donated to the mining town of Kiruna by the Swedish government as a repayment for the massive sinkholes that endangered the city in 2004. Due to the over-extraction of iron ore by local mining companies, the city began to sink, forcing Kiruna to move to an entirely new location at a cost of over $1 billion. In response, the Swedish government repaid Kiruna’s residents with the unusual egg sauna, which was free of charge for locals.

The ovate sauna was such a hit that eventually it went on tour, with stops in Gällivare, Copenhagen, Charlottenborg, Paris, and more. In February 2019, the Solar Egg returned to its original home in Kiruna for a period, before moving to a new permanent home at Artipelag, an art museum in Stockholm, in 2022.