Bigert & Bergströmがスウェーデンに手がけた、再生した土地を映し出す光輝く結晶〈クリスタル・サウナ〉
スウェーデン北部の都市シェルレフテオーに、アートを通じて地球の気候変動に光を当てるアーティストデュオBigert & Bergströmの最新作〈クリスタル・サウナ（Crystal Sauna）〉が誕生しました。
かつて国内最悪レベルの工業汚染地帯の土壌浄化を経て生まれた気候対策公園「ウェイストランド」の中心的存在として、地域のグリーン・トランジション（環境移行）を象徴する新たな視覚的ランドマークです。
注目ポイント
- 再生した土地だからこそ掲げる「廃棄物から希望へ（From Waste to Promise）」
- 280個のプリズムが織りなすピンク色の鏡面ファサード
- ハイテクな外観と対比をなす、CNC加工による「木製の洞窟」
- EVからも給電可能な世界初の「バッテリー駆動式」サウナシステム
（以下、ウェイストランドのプレスキットの抄訳）
© Pär Olofsson
工業汚染地帯から気候対策の公園へ：スウェーデンに誕生した〈クリスタル・サウナ〉
2026年5月28日、「Society Expo 2026（SE26）」の開催に合わせて、スウェーデンのシェルレフテオーに「ウェイストランド・クライメート・アクション・パーク（WasteLand Climate Action Park）」がオープンした。公園の中央には、Bigert & Bergströmによる人目を引く新しいパブリックアート作品〈クリスタル・サウナ〉がそびえ立っている。
この取り組みにより、地域で最も汚染のひどかった工業地帯の1つが、アート、気候変動に関する対話、そして都市開発のための新たな公共空間へと劇的に変貌を遂げた。
© Pär Olofsson
変貌を遂げた景観に佇む新たなランドマーク
「ウェイストランド」の中心にそびえ立つ〈クリスタル・サウナ〉は、巨大な非対称のリチウム結晶を模した、実際に利用可能な「パブリック・サウナ彫刻」である。チタンコーティングを施したピンク色のステンレス鏡面鋼で覆われたこの作品は、周囲の川や森を映し出しながら、紛れもない新たな視覚的ランドマークとなっている。彫刻的なフォルムの内部には、対照的な感覚体験を意図して設計された、温かみのある造形空間「木製の洞窟」が広がっている。
〈クリスタル・サウナ〉は、国際的に高い評価を得ている〈ティッピング・ポイント〉や〈ソーラーエッグ〉などのパブリック・アートを手がけたアーティストデュオ、Bigert & Bergströmによって制作された。ウェイストランドにおいて、彼らの新作は単なる目的地であるだけでなく、より大きな物語の象徴となっている。それは、100年にわたる工業生産と汚染の痕跡が残る場所が、いかにして人々の想像力、気候変動への省察、そして未来を創り出すための場へと変貌を遂げ得るかを示す物語である。
© Pär Olofsson
負の遺産から未来のイノベーションへ
「ウェイストランド」は、かつてのシャリン工業地帯に位置している。この地域は、パルプ生産に伴う有毒化学物質の排出により、数十年にわたりスウェーデンで最も汚染された工業地帯の1つであった。しかし、17年間にわたる大規模な土壌浄化を経て、現在は「廃棄物から希望へ（From Waste to Promise）」をモットーに、再生の道を歩んでいる。
この公園は、都市開発、気候変動への適応、芸術的実践、そして学術研究を融合させている。未来の持続可能な社会に焦点を当てた国際的なプラットフォーム「Society Expo 2026」に合わせてオープンする「ウェイストランド」は、気候変動対策、議論、省察、そして社会の変化に対する新たな視点のための公園として構想された。
この歴史と未来のイノベーションが交差する地点に、世界初のバッテリー駆動式サウナヒーターが設置された。〈クリスタル・サウナ〉に設置された古代の火打石を模したこのヒーターは、完全にグリーン電力で稼働している。
© Pär Olofsson
シェルレフテオーにおけるグリーン・トランジション（環境移行）
ウェイストランドはコミュニティのレジリエンス（回復力）を証明するものである。シェルレフテオーは、大きな社会変革の中心に位置し、持続可能な都市計画とグリーン産業の先導を目指している。バッテリーメーカーのノースボルトから米国企業ライテンへの最近の移行など、急速な成長と大きな産業構造の変化に対応する中で、この都市は決定的な問いに直面している。社会・経済・環境のあらゆる面で持続可能性を維持しつつ、地域社会は好況と不況の両方にいかに迅速に対応できるのだろうか。
これらの問いへの答えを見出すため、同市は民主的で学際的な対話のための新たな物理的場を創出している。シェルレフテオーは、産業の過去が残した痕跡を隠すのではなく、その上に先見性のある未来を築くことを選択している。「ウェイストランド・ウォーキング・トーク（WasteLand Walking Talks）」のようなインタラクティブなコンセプトを通じて、この公園は受動的な講義形式を打破し、研究者、プランナー、そして一般市民を招き、大規模な気候アートに囲まれて共に歩き、語り合う場を提供する。
「ウェイストランド」と〈クリスタル・サウナ〉は、世界的なイベント「Society Expo 2026」に合わせて開設され、私たちの共有する未来について「熱い議論」を交わすダイナミックな出会いの場となる。サウナの儀式そのもの——極度の熱に耐え、清められ、生まれ変わった状態で現れること——は、シェルレフテオーが現在経験している、時に痛みを伴うが不可欠な社会的変革を反映している。
〈クリスタル・サウナ〉概要
- 場所：スウェーデン、シェルレフテオー、シェルレフテオー川沿い「ウェイストランド」
- オープン：2026年5月28日〜「Society Expo（SE26）」開催期間中
- 定員：12～15名
- 予約：www.visitskelleftea.se
© Pär Olofsson
外観と構造
形状：非対称のロッククリスタルをモチーフに設計されている。ファサードは、周囲の風景を映し出すチタンコーティングされたピンクの鏡面金属板で覆われた約280個のプリズムで構成されている。特徴的なピンク色は、真空チャンバー内で電圧をかけながらチタンを蒸発させ、金属板上に凝縮させることで生み出されている。構造全体が4度後方に傾いており、自然の岩層を連想させるだけでなく、ピサの斜塔を想起させるデザインとなっており、これはアーティストのキャリアにおいて最も複雑な建設プロジェクトである。
デジタルパズル：建設プロセスには極めて高い精度が求められた。彫刻は完全にデジタルで設計され、140枚以上の金属板（上部58枚、側面86枚）はレーザーカットされ、3,500個以上のナットとボルトで組み立てられた。
木製デッキ：サウナは、地元の松の心材で作られた六角形の木製デッキの上に建っている。
© Pär Olofsson
© Pär Olofsson
内部
木製の洞窟：内部はハイテクな外観とは対照的で、古代の洞窟のような形状をしており、人類が初めて火を操ることを学んだ東アフリカのリフトバレーにおける、人類最古の定住地へのオマージュとなっている。耐熱性のある上質な木製ベニヤをCNC加工し、認証済みのスプルース材フレーム（SpaPlex）で構成されている。床は、天然の樹脂を豊富に含むスウェーデン北部の心材松で造られている。木材サプライヤーのNorra Timberは、X線技術を用いて、湿気や腐朽に耐えるために化学処理を必要としない心材松を選定している。サウナのベンチはハンノキ材で手作りされている。
© Pär Olofsson
ユニークなサウナヒーター
石器時代のフォルム：このヒーターは手作業で鍛造されており、人類最古の道具とされる、東アフリカのオールドワン文化に由来する250万年前のチョッパー（石器）から着想を得ている。
素材と重量：内部には260kgのオリビン石が充填され、表面は石器時代の道具製作の中心地であったノルマンディー沿岸産の黒色フリントで覆われている。ヒーター全体の重量は700kgである。
技術と革新：世界初のバッテリー駆動式サウナであり、独立型バッテリーと電気自動車の両方から電力を供給できる。「Vehicle-to-Sauna」プロジェクトを通じて、シェルレフテオー・クラフト社は、電気自動車のバッテリーでサウナとウェイストランド・パークの両方に電力を供給できる革新的な技術の試験と開発を行っている。
© Pär Olofsson
© Bigert & Bergström
© Bigert & Bergström
© Bigert & Bergström
© Bigert & Bergström
© Bigert & Bergström
© Bigert & Bergström
© Bigert & Bergström
以下、ウェイストランドのリリース（英文）です。
WasteLand in Skellefteå
Crystal Sauna opens
On 28 May 2026, WasteLand Climate Action Park opened in Skellefteå in connection with Society Expo 2026. At the centre of the park stands Crystal Sauna, a new eyecatching public artwork by the artist duo Bigert & Bergström.
Why it is worth covering:
• Crystal Sauna, a public sculpture and functioning sauna by Bigert & Bergström, as well as several other architectural works.
• A dramatic transformation from one of the region’s most polluted industrial sites into a new public place for art, climate dialogue and urban development.
• Opportunity to interview the artists, climate researchers and representatives involved in Skellefteå’s transformation.A new landmark in a transformed landscape
At the centre of WasteLand stands Crystal Sauna, a fully functioning public sauna sculpture shaped like a giant asymmetric lithium crystal. Clad in pink, stainless mirror steel with a titanium coating, the work reflects the surrounding river and forest while creating a new and unmistakable visual landmark. Inside the sculptural form is a warm, shaped interior, a “wooden cave”, designed as a contrasting sensory experience.
Crystal Sauna was created by Bigert & Bergström, the artist duo behind internationally acclaimed public works such as Tipping Point and Solar Egg. At WasteLand, their new work becomes a destination and a symbol of a larger story: how a site marked by 100 years of industrial production and pollution can be transformed into a place for public imagination, climate reflection and future-making.
From polluted industrial site to park for climate action
After 17 years of extensive remediation work, Scharin’s former industrial area, previously one of Västerbotten’s most polluted sites, has been transformed into a green meeting place and a visionary outdoor laboratory for future urban development. Under the motto “From Waste to Promise”, we are now opening the doors to the art and knowledge park WasteLand — a unique place where urban development, climate adaptation and spectacular art come together.
The park brings together urban development, climate adaptation, artistic practice and academic research. It opens in connection with Society Expo 2026 (SE26), an international platform focused on the sustainable societies of the future. WasteLand is intended as a park for climate action, discussion, reflection and new perspectives on how society changes.
What you can experience on site at WasteLand
Crystal Sauna
A mirrored sauna sculpture in pink steel by Bigert & Bergström, and the visual centrepiece of the park. Crystal Sauna is the artists’ most complex work and combines sculptural storytelling with public function and craftsmanship.Circle Walk
A 400-metre circular path drawn through the thicket forest, designed by Bigert & Bergström as a place for reflection, walking and conversation.Broken Greenhouse
Five large greenhouse sculptures scattered through a wild forest labyrinth, created by Bigert & Bergström in collaboration with climate researchers to give physical form to the UN’s five future climate scenarios.Lookout tower
An observation tower and pavilion designed by master’s students at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design.First Came The Landscape
Artist Ingela Ihrman’s wooden sculpture rests directly on the ground of the Scharin area, a site marked by human exploitation. Here, in a time of recovery, between the poisoning caused by industry and the hope for a healthier future, the sculpture reminds us of our shared origin in the landscape.Playotope
The Playotope is an innovative play and recreation area adapted for both children and adults, created together with Luleå University of Technology. There is also a boules court, a barbecue area and a gaga ball rink.The park also includes the installation Sow a Seed, which draws inspiration from Irene Rasmussen’s work From Seed to Sim (2023), in which the artist explores how super plants absorb heavy metals and toxic pollutants and can help remediate contaminated land.
First Came the Landscape, 2026
Ingela Ihrman
Sculpture of root plate and pine
Skellefteå KonsthallAt the meeting point between Ursviken’s industrial history and the city’s future, a wooden spine rests.
The twelve-metre-long skeleton is assembled from branches and roots — a physical body that reminds us that the landscape was here first, long before humans and industry.
The Scharin area bears traces of both human success and environmental wounds.
About the artist
Ingela Ihrman is one of the Nordic region’s most significant artists. Her work is characterised by a strong craft tradition and deep empathy for the non-human. Through her large-scale sculptures and performances, she explores what it means to be a living being among others.
The work is part of the series of large wooden skeletons the artist has created, including at the Eden Project in Cornwall in 2023, then made from trees that had fallen in storms or died of disease. In Skellefteå, the sculpture is a permanent part of Ingela Ihrman’s exhibition at Skellefteå Konsthall in autumn 2026.
Lorents Burman, Chair of the Municipal Executive Board in Skellefteå:
“Skellefteå is at the centre of a historic and rapid societal transformation. But when a city grows at this pace, we must ask ourselves a crucial question: how do we build the society of tomorrow in a way that makes our children actually want to live here? To find the answers, we need new arenas for public conversation. Through WasteLand, we are transforming a historical environmental debt into a visionary platform for the urban development of the future.”
“WasteLand will be a meeting place where Skellefteå residents, researchers and urban planners can literally walk and talk together about a more sustainable future.”
Från giftig ödemark till park för klimatåtgärder
Crystal Sauna is the centrepiece of WasteLand, located on the former Scharin industrial site. For decades, this was one of Sweden’s most polluted industrial areas as a result of toxic chemical emissions from pulp production. After 17 years of extensive soil remediation, the area is now being brought back to life under the motto “From Waste to Promise”. At the meeting point between this history and the innovations of the future, the sauna has been given the world’s first battery-powered sauna heater – shaped like an ancient flint tool and powered entirely by green electricity.
Skellefteå and the green transition
At its core, WasteLand is a testament to a community’s resilience. Skellefteå is at the centre of a major societal transformation and aims to lead the way in sustainable urban planning and green industry. As the city handles rapid growth and major industrial shifts, such as the recent transition from battery manufacturer Northvolt to the American company Lyten, it faces decisive questions. How can a community respond more quickly to both booms and downturns while remaining sustainable — socially, economically and environmentally?
To find answers to these questions, the city is creating new physical arenas for democratic and interdisciplinary dialogue. Instead of hiding the traces of its industrial past, Skellefteå is choosing to build its visionary future on top of them. Through interactive concepts such as WasteLand Walking Talks, the park breaks with the passive lecture format and invites researchers, planners and the public to walk and talk together among large-scale climate art.
WasteLand and Crystal Sauna are being launched in connection with the global event Society Expo 2026 (SE26) and will become a dynamic meeting place for “hot conversations” about our shared future. The sauna ritual itself — enduring extreme heat and then emerging cleansed and renewed — reflects the sometimes painful but necessary societal transformation Skellefteå is undergoing.
Fact sheet about Crystal Sauna by Bigert & Bergström
Location: WasteLand in Ursviken by the Skellefte River, Skellefteå, Sweden
Opening: 28 May 2026, during Society Expo (SE26)
Capacity: 12–15 people
Booking: www.visitskelleftea.seExterior and construction
Shape: Designed as an asymmetric rock crystal. The façade consists of around 280 prisms clad in titanium-coated pink mirror sheet metal that reflects the surrounding landscape. The characteristic pink colour is created by evaporating titanium and condensing it onto the sheet metal in a vacuum chamber under electrical voltage. The entire structure leans backwards by 4 degrees to evoke natural rock formations, but also the Leaning Tower of Pisa, making this the most complex construction project of the artists’ career.
Digital puzzle: The construction process required extreme precision. The sculpture was designed entirely digitally, and its more than 140 metal sheets — 58 top sections and 86 side sections — were laser-cut and assembled with more than 3,500 nuts and bolts.
Wooden deck: The sauna stands on a hexagonal wooden deck made of local heartwood pine.
Interior
Wooden cave: The interior contrasts with the high-tech exterior and is shaped like an ancient cave, a tribute to humanity’s earliest settlements in the Rift Valley in East Africa, where humans first learned to master fire. It is CNC-cut in a heat-resistant fine wood veneer with a certified spruce frame (SpaPlex). The floor is built from naturally resin-rich northern Swedish heartwood pine. Using X-ray technology, the timber supplier Norra Timber selects heartwood pine that does not require chemical treatment to withstand moisture and rot. The sauna benches are handmade in alder.
A unique sauna heater
Stone Age form: The heater is hand-forged and inspired by humanity’s oldest known tool: a 2.5-million-year-old chopper from the Oldowan culture in East Africa.
Materials and weight: The core is filled with 260 kilos of olivine stone, while the surface is clad in black flint from the coast of Normandy — the Stone Age’s own toolmaking metropolis. The entire heater weighs 700 kilos.
Technology and innovation: This is the world’s first battery-powered sauna, which can be powered by electricity from both standalone batteries and electric vehicles. Through the “Vehicle-to-Sauna” project, Skellefteå Kraft is testing and developing innovative technology that allows an electric vehicle battery to power both the sauna and the WasteLand park.
About the artists Bigert & Bergström
Bigert & Bergström is a Stockholm-based artist duo consisting of Mats Bigert and Lars Bergström. They began collaborating in 1986 after studying at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm and have since established an international reputation through conceptually driven and technically advanced works in sculpture, installation, performance and film. Their art often brings together people, nature and technology. Combining scientific curiosity, social analysis and humour, they explore issues such as climate change, the environment and the living conditions of the future. Their works have been widely shown in international exhibitions and public spaces, and they are also well represented in Swedish public art. Among their best-known works are:
Tipping Point (2021), a performance / installation / kinetic sculpture about the balancing forces that shape climate change.
Solar Egg (2017), a giant egg-shaped sauna created in connection with the relocation of the mining town of Kiruna.
The Weather War (2012), a documentary / art film about humanity’s attempts to control the weather.
The Freeze (2015), a geoengineering performance to cover Sweden’s highest glacier peak and save it from melting.
Quotes from the artists Bigert & Bergström
As artists, Bigert & Bergström have been interested since the early 1990s in humanity’s relationship to the powers of weather and the forces we try — and fail — to control. Whether it is covering Kebnekaise’s glacier to slow melting, depicting how the genie of greenhouse gases has escaped the bottle in the work Broken Greenhouse, or inviting people to conversation in Solar Egg, they seek to make visible both the challenges of climate change and possible solutions.
By cladding the sauna in pink mirror sheet metal, the artists have created a work that reflects the nature returning after the remediation of the industrial site, as well as the river landscape and its complex industrial history. Inside the wood-clad cave, visitors gather around a sauna heater shaped like a prehistoric flint stone. It is a social artwork in which the artists literally build the new on top of the landscape of the past, creating a meeting place for conversations about the future.
About the basic idea of the project and the name WasteLand
“The starting point was a kind of humorous take on the question of what you can do with a polluted former industrial site. The idea was to turn the perspective around and make it into an exciting pleasure — not to assume that everything is over and used up, but to transform it into something new.
“The name comes from T. S. Eliot’s modernist poem The Waste Land from 1922. The myth of the wasteland reminds us that every collapse also carries within it the seed of renewal. For a long time, the Scharin industrial area was a modern wasteland, a place deeply marked by industrial pollution. For us, sustainability is not only about technology or behaviour, but about a necessary mental movement through the wasteland. Crystal Sauna is our way of giving form to that healing process.”
About the sauna, the heat and the connection to lithium
“Working with a sauna is interesting because it makes temperature changes physically tangible, and we experience them together, naked and without all protective social attributes. At a time when our entire planet is getting warmer, the sauna paradoxically offers a safe space where we voluntarily expose ourselves to extreme heat. In this way, the abstract climate crisis is transformed into something we can literally feel on our skin.
“Lithium is an interesting mineral because it is said to represent the entire green transition, while mineral extraction also makes mining areas heavily polluted. Lithium is also an extremely important substance for our bodies. For example, it helps people with bipolar disorder maintain mental balance. That made us start thinking about lithium and the image of a pink crystal.”
About the sauna’s external form
“It imitates a kind of rock crystal form, built from hexagons, like the basalt formations you can see in Iceland. It is made of pink mirror sheet metal and consists of at least 280 prisms that reflect their surroundings. The result is an unusual fragmentation that you encounter as you move around it.
“This is the most difficult project we have ever worked on. For all the prisms to fit together seamlessly, every joint has to meet at different angles. Everything was drawn digitally and cut with CNC machines and laser technology. It really is an achievement that took a year and a half from the first sketch.”
About the inner cave and the sauna heater as a Stone Age tool
“When you enter the sauna, it is like stepping into a cave. It connects to the earliest period of human life, when we sought shelter in caves and began making fire to keep warm. That challenge gave rise to our very first inventions.
“We have shaped the ‘fire’ — the sauna heater — like humanity’s very first tool: an ancient pointed flint stone from Olduvai in East Africa, 2.5 million years old. The heater is filled with olivine stone and clad in black flint from the Alabaster Coast in Normandy, which during the Stone Age was a centre of toolmaking.”
Om konstens kraft
“Crystal Sauna is much more than a building. It is a performative sculpture for health and awareness. Here, art functions as a catalyst for an entire district and gives form to the very transition from polluted industry to a new, sustainable society. In this way, Crystal Sauna becomes a place for cleansing, reflection and the necessary hot conversations we must dare to have about the future.”
“You can try to see the potential in a ruined industrial area, not only mourn what has been lost but build something new. Earth’s history is full of upheavals and catastrophes that have prepared the ground for new species and forms of life.”
Bigert & Bergström 公式サイト
https://bigertbergstrom.com/
