Polar fascination in the Turkish Metropolis

Since April 2010 the Turkish Metropolis Istanbul has a new visitor attraction that is one-of-a-kind - the Magic Ice Museum. The museum in Istanbul’s shopping centre in the district of Bayrampasa is one of the few ice museums in a warmer climate zone.

Visitors enter the inside of the museum through an ice tunnel. A highlight are the 34 artistically manufactured ice sculptures that remind of the Viking invasion 880 AD in Byzantium, today known as Istanbul.

But also the Viking ships and houses as well as the entrance of the museum are true masterpieces made out of ice.

For the construction of the Magic Ice Museum a total of 300 tons ice were needed. 100 tons from Sweden had to be delivered to the Bosporus, 200 tons of ice came from Turkey.

The temperatures in the museum with a size of approx. 650 m² are constantly kept at -5° Celsius. To make sure that the visitors won’t get cold, they are equipped with Eskimo cloths. 

The installation of the refrigerating system was done by the company Frigo Mekanik, Istanbul. Because of the positive experiences with Bock compressors in the past, Frigo Mekanik also chose for this project compressors by the German piston-specialist. The systems, both equipped with three HGX6/1080-4 compressors are operated with the refrigerant R404A. To save energy with adjustable speed control of the compressor, one system was equipped with the Bock EFCe System (Electronic Frequency Converter) the other one with a conventional capacity regulation.