Iconic Architectural Saunas Around the World

Why the sauna became an architectural subject

For most of the twentieth century the sauna was a practical building. In Helsinki, public saunas served neighbourhoods where flats had no bathrooms. Kotiharjun Sauna in Kallio, which has operated since 1928, is the best-known survivor of that era and is still heated with wood.

Over the last fifteen years, architects and artists have returned to the type with new ambitions. The saunas below were chosen because their designers, locations and opening years are well documented, and because each adds something distinct: a sculptural form, a social idea, a response to a site or a material story.

Löyly, Helsinki: a timber cloak on the shoreline

Löyly, designed by Avanto Architects, opened in 2016 in Hernesaari, a former industrial harbour area of Helsinki that is being redeveloped. The architectural idea is simple: a rectangular box containing the warm rooms is wrapped in a free-form cloak of heat-treated pine.

The lamellas of that cloak work like venetian blinds. They block views in from the street while leaving sea views open from inside, and they form stepped terraces where visitors sit between rounds. The building combines a restaurant with three wood-heated saunas, one of them a traditional smoke sauna. Löyly is often cited as the project that made the public sauna a design destination again.

Kulttuurisauna and Allas Sea Pool: two more Helsinki waterfronts

Kulttuurisauna, the Culture Sauna, opened in 2013 on the Hakaniemi shoreline. It was designed by the Finnish-Japanese architect couple Tuomas Toivonen and Nene Tsuboi and grew out of Helsinki's year as World Design Capital in 2012. The building is small and restrained, with a minimalism that draws on both Finnish and Japanese traditions, and its saunas are heated with wood pellets as part of a low-emission concept. Swimmers go straight into the sea, also in winter.

Allas Sea Pool, by Huttunen–Lipasti–Pakkanen Architects, sits in the historic harbour next to Market Square. Its pools and saunas opened on 1 September 2016. A floating deck holds two 25-metre pools, one with warm water and one with filtered sea water. The complex is built in wood, a choice the architects linked to its temporary character, and it brings sauna bathing into the most formal part of the city centre.

SALT, Oslo: a nomadic sauna village

SALT began as a travelling art project in northern Norway before settling on Langkaia in Oslo, opposite the Opera House. Its wooden structures were designed by Sami Rintala of Rintala Eggertsson Architects together with Kyrre Kalseth and the artist Joar Nango. The Arctic Pyramid, a 70-metre timber frame, takes its form from traditional racks used to dry fish.

The site combines several saunas with concert and art spaces. The largest, Árdna, seats around 100 people, which makes it one of the biggest saunas anywhere. SALT has always been a temporary installation, and in summer 2026 the municipality ordered a temporary closure over fire-safety concerns, so it is worth checking the current status before a visit.

Frihamnen sauna, Gothenburg: industrial and open to all

In Gothenburg, the Berlin collective Raumlabor built a public sauna in the Frihamnen port, part of Jubileumsparken, a park project linked to the city's 400th anniversary. The prototype opened in 2015, raised above the water and reached by a timber bridge. Its exterior is corrugated steel, while the interior is lined with thin strips of larch. The changing area sits behind walls made of thousands of glass bottles.

The sauna seats around twenty people. In summer 2024 the prototype was replaced by an identical new building on the same site, reusing the original facade panels. It is a rare example of a city deciding that a temporary sauna had become part of its identity.

Arctic Bath and Solar Egg: two answers from Swedish Lapland

Arctic Bath, on the Lule River near Harads, opened in 2020 and was developed by the team behind the nearby Treehotel. Architects Bertil Harström and Johan Kauppi designed a circular building that floats in summer and freezes into the river in winter. Its walls and roof are covered with logs set at varying angles, a reference to the log jams of the region's timber-floating history. At the centre is an open cold bath, surrounded by saunas and spa rooms.

Solar Egg, by the artist duo Bigert & Bergström, was completed in 2017 for the housing company Riksbyggen as a gift to Kiruna, a town being relocated because of iron ore mining. The egg-shaped shell is made of 69 gold-coloured plates that reflect the landscape. Inside, aspen benches surround a wood-fired stove in the form of an anatomical heart, with room for eight people. The sauna has since travelled to places including Paris, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Minnesota.

What these saunas have in common

Most of these buildings are public or semi-public, and many sit directly on water, where a swim is part of the ritual. They tend to use a small palette of honest materials, mostly timber, with steel or glass where the site calls for it. Each has a readable idea: a cloak, a log jam, a fish rack, an egg.

They also show that a sauna works on two scales at once. From a distance it is an object in the landscape or on the quay, and its outline has to hold its own against water, sky and neighbouring buildings. From inside it is a small, dim room where the only things that matter are the heat, the bench and the window. The best of these projects treat the transition between the two as part of the design: a bridge in Gothenburg, stepped timber terraces at Löyly, a central cold bath at Arctic Bath, the short walk into the sea at Kulttuurisauna. Moving from heat to cold and back is the core of the ritual, and good architecture makes that path short, sheltered and pleasant in every season.

The same principles apply at a much smaller scale to a private outdoor sauna: a clear form, careful orientation to view and light, and materials that age well. AUREFJORD designs architectural outdoor saunas with these ideas in mind.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. Dezeen: Avanto Architects builds coastal sauna in Helsinki with a faceted timber cloak
2. MyHelsinki: Kulttuurisauna
3. Finnish Architecture Navigator: Allas Sea Pool
4. Visit Oslo: Sauna at SALT
5. Dezeen: Raumlabor builds industrial-looking sauna above the waters of Gothenburg port
6. Arctic Bath: Our story
7. ArchDaily: Solar Egg / Bigert & Bergström
8. MyHelsinki: Kotiharju Sauna