Ice museum launched in Istanbul
By IANSThursday, April 22, 2010
ISTANBUL - World’s first permanent ice museum Magic Ice was launched in this Turkish city Thursday, Xinhua reported.
The museum is likely to attract about one million visitors annually, a museum official said.
Magic Ice director general Oddruar Olsen said the idea to open such a museum came from Scandinavian countries and it took two months to complete the project.
The museum houses 34 ice statues of men and women, bears, fishes and birds, among others. The theme of the museum would be changed every six months.
The museum covers an area of 1,400 sq meters. Visitors will wear special Eskimo clothes inside the museum that will be minus five degrees Celsius both in winters and summers.
A total of 70 tonnes of ice had been brought from Sweden for the statues, while the walls and the tunnels of the museum were made with 100 tonnes of ice from Istanbul.
The project was executed by Norwegian Lotofen Trading Company, while infrastructure, heating and cooling systems of the museum were made by Turkish engineers.
