I used to think Icelandic design was all about minimalism—you know, that stark white-walls-and-nothing-else aesthetic.
Turns out, there’s a lot more going on beneath the surface, and honestly, it makes sense once you consider the climate. Iceland sits just below the Arctic Circle, where winter days stretch into months of near-darkness, and summer brings the midnight sun—a disorienting, beautiful phenomenon that never quite lets you sleep properly. The interior design tradition here isn’t about following trends or copying Scandinavian neighbors; it’s about survival, really, about creating spaces that combat seasonal affective disorder before anyone had a clinical term for it. Icelanders have spent centuries figuring out how to make small, dark spaces feel expansive and warm, using whatever materials the landscape provides—wool, sheepskin, driftwood, volcanic rock. It’s pragmatic design born from necessity, but somewhere along the way, it became something more: a philosophy about living well in harsh conditions, about embracing imperfection and natural variation rather than fighting against them.
The textures are what get me every time I visit—layered, almost excessive in their abundance. You’ll find thick woolen blankets draped over sofas, sheepskin rugs piled three-deep on floors, chunky knit throws that look like they weigh about fifteen pounds. It’s not decorator-perfect; sometimes the colors clash slightly, the pile gets matted, the edges fray.
Wait—maybe that’s the point, actually. There’s this concept in Icelandic culture that roughly translates to “cozy chaos,” though I’m probably butchering the nuance. The idea is that comfort trumps pristine presentation, that a lived-in space with mismatched textures and worn surfaces feels more human than a sterile showroom. I’ve seen homes where lava rock walls meet felted wool wall hangings, where rough-hewn timber beams contrast with impossibly soft mohair cushions. The juxtaposition shouldn’t work, but it does—the roughness makes the softness feel softer, the hard edges make the yielding surfaces more inviting. Icelanders tend to favor natural, undyed fibers that show their age: creamy whites that yellow slightly, grays that fade unevenly, browns that darken with use and handling over the years.
Here’s the thing about natural light in Iceland: it’s either everywhere or nowhere.
During summer, the sun barely sets, circling the horizon in this perpetual golden-hour glow that photographers travel thousands of miles to capture. Windows become architectural focal points—massive, unobstructed expanses of glass that blur the line between interior and exterior, letting in every possible photon during the abundant months. But come winter, when daylight shrinks to maybe four or five hours (and that’s generous), those same windows become portals to darkness, and artificial lighting has to do the heavy lifting for twenty hours a day. The solution Icelanders have developed over generations involves layering light sources at different heights and intensities: floor lamps with warm LED bulbs, candles clustered on every available surface (they burn through candles at a rate that seems almost excessive to outsiders), pendant lights with fabric shades that diffuse rather than direct, and—increasingly—those fancy circadian rhythm bulbs that attempt to mimick natural sunlight patterns. It’s not quite the same as actual sun, I guess, but the cumulative effect creates this gentle, enveloping glow that somehow makes winter evenings feel less oppressive, more like an intentional retreat than an imposed limitation.
The color palette tends toward earth tones with occasional punctuation. Lots of whites and creams and oatmeals, interrupted by deep forest greens, slate blues, charcoal grays—colors pulled directly from the Icelandic landscape, from moss-covered lava fields and glacial ice and volcanic beaches. Sometimes you’ll see a burst of color—a rust-orange cushion, a terracotta vase—but it’s used sparingly, almost apologetically.
Honestly, I think the restraint comes from the landscape itself, which is so visually overwhelming that interior spaces need to provide rest for the eyes. When your daily commute involves driving past waterfalls and geothermal pools and mountains that look like they belong on another planet, your home becomes a sanctuary of simplicity. The textures provide interest without visual noise; the natural light (when available) does the work of making spaces feel dynamic and alive. It’s design that understands its role: not to compete with nature, but to complement it, to create a buffer zone between the human body and the elements outside. And maybe that’s what makes it feel so definately, thoroughly livable—it’s not about impressing visitors or achieving magazine-perfect aesthetics, but about crafting spaces that genuinely support human wellbeing in a climate that can feel, at times, almost hostile to human habitation.
