In Skellefteå, northern Sweden, one of the region’s most polluted former industrial sites has spent 17 years being cleaned up. And what did they put there when they were done?
A massive, shiny, fully functioning sauna. Obvs.
Crystal Sauna is the wonderfully weird centrepiece of WasteLand Climate Action Park, which opened in May 2026 on the former Scharin industrial site. Designed by Swedish artist duo Bigert & Bergström, the public sauna looks like an enormous asymmetric lithium crystal dropped beside the Skellefte River, with around 280 prisms clad in pink, titanium-coated mirrored steel. Inside, things get even stranger.
The futuristic pink exterior gives way to a timber-lined ‘cave’, complete with a 700-kilogram sauna heater inspired by a 2.5-million-year-old Stone Age tool.
Better still, Crystal Sauna is billed as the world’s first battery-powered sauna, with technology being tested that allows an electric vehicle battery to help power it.
And yes, you can actually sauna in it. There’s room for around 12–15 sweaty humans at a time.
RELATED ⟶ EUROPE’S HOTTEST SAUNA EXPERIENCES
The wider WasteLand park is equally unusual, with broken greenhouse sculptures representing different climate futures, a forest labyrinth, enormous artworks and a 400-metre walking trail designed for wandering, talking and contemplating how badly we’ve cooked the planet.
A former toxic wasteland turned into climate art you can sit naked inside? Very Sweden. Very into it.
Share >
In the whiteout of an Arctic winter, Ewen Bell meets a group of modern Swedish outdoorsmen inviting visitors to experience their sub-zero wonderland.
Saltwater lovers, rejoice: Malta is having a seriously big moment beneath the waves.
