Iced Time Tunnel (The Snow Show, Rovaniemi)
Rovaniemi, Lapland
Sources checked October 2026
- Year
- 2004
- Architect
- Tadao Ando
- Type
- Ephemeral ice installation
- Access
- Gone: an ephemeral ice installation of The Snow Show
Iced Time Tunnel is an ephemeral installation of The Snow Show, an exhibition of art and architecture made of snow and ice in Finnish Lapland. Tadao Ando designed an ice tunnel of continuous curved lines, in which the artist Tatsuo Miyajima placed seventy "Counter Gadgets".
History
The Snow Show is an exhibition that pairs artists and architects for works made of snow and ice. The Finnish cities of Rovaniemi and Kemi, in Lapland, organised it together; the project covers 2003 and 2004. Iced Time Tunnel is Tadao Ando's collaboration with the artist Tatsuo Miyajima.
Architecture
For Ando, ice is a fleeting, shapeless material; out of it he drew a minimal, pared-down form, a tunnel whose motif is an unbroken curve. Within this geometric space of ice a "sequence" of light and air appears, answering Tatsuo Miyajima's theme of time as it runs from the past into the present and on into the future.
Miyajima set seventy "Counter Gadgets" into the ice tunnel. Each counts through the digits 1 to 9, an image of the brightness of life; zero, which is never displayed, stands for the darkness of death. This endless repetition comes from Buddhist philosophy, and the artist sees the work as a time tunnel of life.
Rovaniemi, Lapland
