Solving the century-old puzzle of how and where cosmic rays are accelerated mostly drives the design of high-energy neutrino telescopes. It calls, along with a diversity of science goals reaching particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology, for the construction of a kilometer-scale neutrino detector. This led to the IceCube concept to transform a kilometer cube of transparent Antarctic Ice, one mile below the South Pole, into a neutrino telescope.