Ice Palaces Mimic Masonry Construction
by Jamie Farny, PCA

A Tradition Begins
The year 1886 found Montreal, Canada in the middle of a smallpox epidemic and the winter festival was cancelled. Montreal’s "ice palace architect" went to St. Paul, Minnesota where he designed the first ice castle to be built in the United States. The St. Paul Winter Carnival became a tradition, with ice castles being built in a variety of locations.

St. Paul, Minnesota’s capital, remains host to a 10-day festival called the Winter Carnival. During this period, people celebrate winter by going ice fishing, “polar bear” swimming (through holes cut in frozen lakes), sledding, ice skating, sled dog racing, and cross country skiing, all during the coldest week of the year. Temperatures rarely surpass zero degrees Fahrenheit during the day and the low is often around 20 below.

Minnesota is called the “land of 10,000 lakes,” so with the cold weather they experience each year, they have no shortage of ice. In certain years, volunteers go to the lakes, harvest the ice in large chunks, and build castles out of them. These are large structures: the 2004 ice palace comprised 27,000 enormous blocks of ice, or “masonry” units, was 240 ft long, and had five turrets, the tallest of which was 75 ft high. Often, teams work day and night for weeks to build each castle.

What’s the point, you might think, other than it’s a cool activity? Okay, first of all, it’s a downright COLD activity. But there is a point to an ice palace, and it starts with celebration…of winter. Making the structure come to life involves community and volunteerism. In fact, building an ice palace epitomizes what building with masonry is all about: a sense of pride, accomplishment, craftsmanship, and teamwork. (Blocks weighed several hundred pounds each.) The ice palace activity is educational and fun, highlighting design and build aspects of one of the oldest and most common building methods.

Building ice palaces is a costly undertaking, so it is not an annual activity. But there is good follow-through from one palace to the next, and lessons are learned for each subsequent structure. Techniques evolve. This is a lot like working with traditional masonry units and mortar. Experience gained over past projects leads to better end results: more efficient design, better plans, and quality workmanship.

Building Materials: Ice Units and Slush Mortars
How the ice is harvested makes us think about masonry units and imperfections. If they contain cracks or other flaws that make construction difficult, we recognize the importance of quality units for our buildings. Shipping affects those properties, as does the environment where the unit is placed. More so with ice units than with concrete or clay units, thankfully, but it raises our appreciation of what is involved in manufacturing and transporting materials to a site undamaged.

Mortar is a crucial element in the palace walls. As heavy as the units are, they still need to bond to the adjoining units; gravity alone is not enough to hold the walls in place. Just like conventional masonry, the mortar plays an important role in construction—accommodating the variations in the units while tying them together into a unified whole. In 2004, units were bonded together through a combination of a slush mortar mixture and partially melted faces. So in addition to the materials, the techniques involved in placing the mortar and unit together are also important aspects of building quality masonry walls.

Design-Build
Creating an ice castle depends on a joint effort and the whole experience exemplifies teamwork. It is crucial that construction proceed smoothly because the units are ultimately temporary. There is a small window of opportunity when you are building with water. Construction delays could literally lead to a meltdown (and sometimes have).

This joint (volunteer) effort mirrors a new delivery system taking hold in construction called design-build, where one firm takes on all aspects of a project. There are still designers and contractors, but they work for the same company. This delivery system eliminates some of the “us versus them” mentality that can lead to problems and delays in construction of any type of building system.

Designs of past palaces have been amazing. Unlike concrete and clay units, with ice the end results are never permanent; but they are certainly dramatic and wondrous. Some of the largest firms in local Minnesota architecture donate enormous amounts of time to make the palace happen. For the 2004 ice palace, Leo A. Daly took the lead. Click here for more information and images.

In modern tall wall construction, loadbearing masonry has been largely replaced by reinforced masonry—grouted cores reinforced with steel bars. But the ice castles have continued in the loadbearing tradition. Designers use actual building codes but insert different material properties (of ice) to come up with workable plans. Again, the process is an integral part of this entire activity and teaches participants some valuable lessons about masonry design and construction.

Quality Control
Sometimes, people are allowed to walk through part of the palaces. Quality control really becomes evident when you’re building with ice—important to ensure safe, albeit temporary, structures. As was noted, both the ice units and “slush” mortar have to be consistent quality if you are going to get the giant ice cubes to stick together the way you want them to. We are so accustomed to building with brick, block, and cement mortar that we almost assume that it is going to be trouble-free with little effort on our part. The fact is, we need to be mindful of specifying quality materials and performing consistent practices so that we continue to achieve good results. Putting time, effort, and a commitment to testing foremost in our minds is the lesson we can take away from the ice palace.

Dramatic Results
Minneapolis and St. Paul both have wonderful examples of historic and new masonry buildings. Masonry has a strong tradition there and continues to be a popular and viable building method. The ice palaces add a little bit of sparkle to this rich tradition.

Ice has a beautiful appearance both day and night: it can sparkle in the sunshine and with the lighting provided at night, it can glow from within. These castles teach the volunteers about the basics of building and designing with masonry and about solving problems that arise in the building process. They provide Minnesota residents and visitors with dramatic examples of the potential of masonry.

 
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