Steam In The City: Culture Of Bathe-ing Transforms Brooklyn’s Waterfront Into America’s Largest Sauna Festival

On the Williamsburg waterfront, winter is getting hotter.

Beginning February 12 through March 1, Therme Group will transform Domino Park into the largest sauna village ever staged in the United States—an ambitious cultural experiment titled Culture of Bathe-ing. More than a wellness activation, the three-week festival positions communal bathing as civic infrastructure, reframing the sauna not as retreat but as public square.

Led by Robert Hammond—best known as the co-founder of High Line and now President of Therme Group US—the initiative arrives at a moment when bathing culture is quietly cresting in American cities. “Bathing is at the start of a cultural wave, think yoga in the ’90s or coffee in the ’80s,” Hammond notes. “Bathhouses are going to be in every neighborhood. We want to make sure the cultural part of bathing isn’t washed away by the wellness trends.”

That distinction—culture over commodification—defines the scale and intention of Culture of Bathe-ing.

A Sauna Village as Social Infrastructure

Seventeen architecturally distinct saunas will anchor the open-air installation along the East River, activated by more than 1,000 guided sessions over the course of the festival. Internationally renowned Aufguss champions will lead immersive heat rituals alongside practitioners from New York mainstays including Bathhouse, Othership, and Russian & Turkish Baths.

Ticketed sauna sessions range from $60 to $125 depending on time and day, while the village grounds themselves remain open to the public. In a deliberate effort to democratize access, more than 1,000 complimentary tickets will be released throughout the run—an acknowledgment that wellbeing at scale requires public participation, not exclusivity.

For Robert C. Hanea, Founder and CEO of Therme Group, the ambition is structural. “For centuries, bathing functioned as civic infrastructure,” he says. “Today, we’re rediscovering its capacity to support collective restoration in places where health, culture, and public life naturally converge.”

Heat as Medium, Heat as Metaphor

Extending beyond the saunas, cultural programming curated in partnership with Pioneer Works—Brooklyn’s boundary-pushing arts institution—transforms the waterfront into a hybrid of bathhouse and performance venue. Titled Hot Bodies, the program introduces live sound, ritual, workshops, and immersive art into the thermal landscape.

Talks and workshops led by figures including Aziwke Mohamed of Black Painters Academy, Samer Ghadry of Tone Center, and the Amateur Astronomers Association blur the lines between sensory practice and intellectual inquiry. The goal is embodied exploration—using heat as both medium and metaphor.

“We’re exploring how gathering in close proximity can open up forms of presence and connection,” says Gabriel Florenz, Founding Artistic and Executive Director at Pioneer Works. In this framing, proximity itself becomes the performance.

From Trend to Movement

The resurgence of communal bathing in the United States mirrors a broader global shift toward preventative health and shared experiences in increasingly fragmented cities. Therme Group, which welcomes more than five million visitors annually across European destinations including Therme Bucharest and Therme Erding, has long treated bathing as an integrated cultural ecosystem—merging sustainable design, art, and hydrothermal therapy.

What makes Culture of Bathe-ing distinct is its urban immediacy. Rather than building a permanent resort, Therme is staging a temporary intervention—testing whether Americans are ready to see bathing not as indulgence, but as essential social infrastructure.

On the Williamsburg waterfront, against the industrial silhouettes of Brooklyn’s past and the glass towers of its present, steam will rise as both spectacle and signal.

If yoga defined the 1990s and specialty coffee the 1980s, communal bathing may well define the decade ahead—not as trend, but as collective ritual rediscovered.

IG: @cultureofbathing