Crystal Sauna in Sweden is far more than an unusual place to experience heat. In Skellefteå, a former polluted industrial site has been transformed after 17 years of remediation into a public park dedicated to climate, art and knowledge. At its centre stands a fully functioning sauna shaped like a giant pink lithium crystal. It is simultaneously a sauna, a work of art and a story about how an industrial past can be transformed into a very different future.
Created by Swedish artist duo Bigert & Bergström, the sauna stands in WasteLand Climate Action Park beside the Skellefte River.
The park occupies land that was once among the more heavily polluted industrial areas in the Västerbotten region.
Today, art, research, nature, public life and sauna culture meet in the same place.
And the most visible symbol of that transformation is a giant pink crystal.
From polluted industrial land to a public sauna
The story of WasteLand began long before the sauna itself was built.
The site beside the river had been associated with industrial activity and serious soil contamination. Returning the land to public use required extensive remediation.
After 17 years of land remediation, the site was given an entirely new purpose.
The creators of WasteLand describe the transformation with the phrase From Waste to Promise – from a polluted past towards a new possibility.
The park opened on 28 May as part of Society Expo 2026.
The sauna placed at its centre is not simply an entertainment attraction. It is a permanent public artwork that symbolically connects the site’s industrial history with discussions about energy, natural resources, climate and the future of society.
Why a lithium crystal?
Crystal Sauna in Sweden is designed in the form of a giant asymmetrical lithium crystal.
The choice is much more than a visual trick.
Lithium is one of the important raw materials used in modern electrification and energy-storage technologies. The crystal therefore refers to the materials required for the transition towards new energy systems.
The artists also point to lithium’s use in medicine, connecting technological progress with human vulnerability.
As a result, the shape of the sauna becomes a symbol where industry, energy, people and the environment meet.
A cold crystal outside, a wooden grotto inside
The exterior of the sauna looks almost futuristic.
Its structure is clad in mirrored stainless steel with a pink titanium-coloured coating. The surface reflects the surrounding river, forest, sky and people, causing the appearance of the building to change with its environment.
Step inside, however, and the atmosphere changes completely.
The artists describe the interior as a “wood grotto” – a warm, crafted wooden space deliberately contrasting with the cold and reflective exterior of the crystal.
Materials used in the sauna include mirrored stainless steel, alder, heartwood pine, copper, glass, stone and LED lighting.
The artwork itself measures approximately 4.4 metres wide, 5.3 metres long and 4.7 metres high.
The world’s first battery-powered sauna heater
The unusual architecture is not the only technological experiment in Crystal Sauna.
Skellefteå Municipality states that the sauna is equipped with the world’s first battery-powered sauna heater.
This fits remarkably well with the concept of the project.
The sauna takes the form of a lithium crystal – lithium being one of the materials most closely associated with modern battery technology – while the heat inside the sauna is itself linked to stored electrical energy.
The architectural symbol and the technical solution therefore become part of the same story.
It is not a sculpture you can only look at
From the outside, Crystal Sauna could easily be mistaken for a sculpture that visitors are expected to admire from a distance.
It is not.
Crystal Sauna is a fully functioning public sauna.
It can be booked for actual sauna sessions, effectively removing the boundary between an artwork and a practical sauna space.
Visitors do not simply observe something created by artists.
They enter it, sit on the benches and experience the artwork through heat, water, sound and their own bodies.
That is one of the qualities that makes Crystal Sauna particularly unusual.
The artwork was not created only to be seen.
It was created to be used.
A sauna as a place to discuss climate
WasteLand was developed as a place where art, research and public life can contribute to discussions about climate change and the future of cities.
Crystal Sauna is not the park’s only installation. Other art, architecture and research projects explore pollution, land restoration, natural processes, climate change and humanity’s use of natural resources.
The sauna therefore acquires an unusual additional role.
It becomes a social meeting place on the very land whose history demonstrates the environmental consequences of industrial activity.
People sit together inside a lithium crystal – a symbol of a material closely connected with modern electrification and the transition towards new energy systems.
The contrast is powerful.
Sauna as art is not new for these artists
Sauna is not an accidental subject for Bigert & Bergström.
The Swedish artist duo previously created the internationally recognised Solar Egg – a golden egg-shaped public sauna originally designed for Kiruna in northern Sweden.
There too, sauna was used not simply as a place to warm up, but as a social space for conversations about changes taking place in the city.
Crystal Sauna continues this idea in a different context.
This time, the focus is polluted land, industry, climate change and the future of energy.
Why is this project interesting for the sauna world?
Sauna architecture often follows one dominant principle – blending into nature.
Wood. A lake. Forest. Simple forms. A peaceful environment.
Crystal Sauna does almost the opposite.
It deliberately wants to be noticed.
Its pink mirrored surfaces, geometric crystal form and industrial symbolism create an object that is almost impossible to confuse with an ordinary sauna.
Yet the essential sauna experience has not disappeared.
Inside there is still wood, stone, heat and people.
That contrast is precisely what makes the project so interesting: a traditional sauna experience has been placed inside a completely unconventional architectural and artistic form.
From industrial pollution to a place where people meet
Perhaps the strongest story behind Crystal Sauna is not about pink steel, batteries or lithium.
It is about the place itself.
Land where industrial activity once left serious contamination has become a public park after 17 years of remediation.
And at its centre now stands a sauna – a space where people sit together.
That transformation captures the WasteLand concept of From Waste to Promise particularly well.
Crystal Sauna in Sweden shows that sauna architecture can be much more than a beautiful building. It can become a way of telling a story about a city, its mistakes, its transformation and its vision of the future.
And this time, that story is being told through a giant pink lithium crystal.
Sources
Bigert & Bergström – WasteLand: Lithium Crystal Sauna.
Skellefteå kommun – WasteLand Skellefteå Climate Action Park invigd – från förorenad mark till plats för framtidstro.
Skellefteå kommun – Wasteland och Crystal Sauna invigs i Skellefteå.
Visit Skellefteå – information about WasteLand and Crystal Sauna.
