China's biggest bank gets frosty reception

Photo: Harbin Ice and Snow Festival 2014 / Design Boom

The palace, apparently modelled afer a branch of the country's large bank, was snapped by Reuters/Sheng Li at the end of 2013, while still under construction. Published by Quartz, the crane gives a sense of scale for the project, which is just one of many extravagant examples of snowchitecture.

Festival organisers told the site that almost 10,000 workers will be involved in assembling and sculpting the massive monuments. In total, the show will use 180,000 square metres of ice and 150,000 square metres of snow.

Design Boom have more stunning preview photos of the 2014 festival, which is held in Northern China every winter. Other landmarks recreated by ambitious ice-lovers include America's Empire State Building, while the finished structures are lit up by multi-coloured LEDs to create an impossible winter wonderland of freezing cold construction.

The festival spans 500,000 square metres, which guarantees enough space for all of the buildings - and, most important of all, a replica of the Hallgrimskirkja church in Reykjavik, Iceland. The building is 46 metres high and, naturally, includes a 240-metre ice slide.

While China's biggest bank may have been given the cold shoulder, though, the festival is never met with a frosty reception from tourists; according to CNN, the Harbin festival has received 28.5 million visitors in the past two years.