Cover Designer Anna Lomax’s All Lit Up! tree for London’s Victoria and Albert museum's South Kensington Grand Entrance (Photo: V&A)
Designer Anna Lomax’s All Lit Up! tree for London’s Victoria and Albert museum's South Kensington Grand Entrance (Photo: V&A)
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Discover how the world’s most innovative creators are transforming the traditional Christmas tree into groundbreaking works of art
In an era when tradition increasingly yields to innovation, the Christmas tree—that enduring symbol of holiday ritual—has become an unlikely canvas for artistic disruption.
At London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, designer Anna Lomax’s spiralling column of light reimagines centuries of evergreen convention. At the same time, luxury hotels commission works that blur the line between decoration and installation art. Perhaps nowhere is this transformation more evident than at Claridge’s, where Christopher Bailey’s umbrella-studded creation once turned a hotel lobby into a kinetic light show.
Here are seven examples of what happened when the most traditional holiday totems met the avant-garde.
Read more: 9 understated, Scandi-inspired Christmas décor ideas using creamy whites and rich caramel tones
1. Kengo Kuma's Kigumi and Komorebi trees, Tokyo Edition hotels
Kengo Kuma’s Kigumi tree in Tokyo Edition, Toranomon (Photo: Edition hotels)
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Celebrated Japanese architect Kengo Kuma’s Christmas trees are an elegant meditation on sustainability and design that transforms the holiday season’s most ephemeral symbol into an exercise of permanence. This year, his twin installations for Tokyo’s Edition hotels (which he also designed) reimagine Christmas trees as architectural studies, crafted from an array of precious woods destined for a second life as furniture.
The first structure, “Kigumi,” soars in metallic-finished linear elements in the Tokyo Edition, Toranomon, while its companion, “Komorebi,” employs curved timber typically destined for disposal and was placed in the lobby bar of the Tokyo Edition, Ginza. Each composition, assembled from six native and imported wood species, will be reborn as furniture by Karimoku.
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2. Alternative Christmas Tree Sculpture by SOM, Utzon Center, Denmark
Above Alternative Christmas Tree Sculpture by SOM in the Utzon Center, Denmark (Photo: Instagram/@skidmoreowingsmerrill)
Alternative Christmas Tree Sculpture by SOM in the Utzon Center, Denmark (Photo: Instagram/@skidmoreowingsmerrill)
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Installed in 2016, world-renowned architectural firm Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM) unveiled a seven-meter luminous lattice pavilion at the Utzon Center in Aalborg, Denmark - Jørn Utzon’s final architectural work.
The walkable structure, crafted from Peter Lassen’s iconic GRID system, reimagined the Christmas tree as a modernist light sculpture.
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3. Christopher Bailey for Burberry, Claridge’s Hotel, London
Above Christopher Bailey for Burberry at Claridge’s Hotel, London (Photo: Claridge’s)
Christopher Bailey for Burberry at Claridge’s Hotel, London (Photo: Claridge’s)
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Claridge’s 2015 holiday season marked an elegant intersection of fashion and tradition when Christopher Bailey’s creation for Burberry transformed the hotel’s legendary lobby with a kinetic light installation masquerading as a Christmas tree.
The structure, an engineering feat comprising 100 metallic umbrellas and 76,000 motion-activated LEDs, served as both a nod to Britain’s rainy heritage and a testament to contemporary luxury. The installation’s modular design, necessitated by the hotel’s historic architecture, concealed sophisticated lighting controls within its stainless steel framework.
Read more: 5 community-led projects by Riken Yamamoto, winner of Pritzker Prize 2024
4. Lee Broom’s Tree of Glass, The Shard, London
Lee Broom’s Tree of Glass at The Shard, London (Photo: Nude)
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Renowned lighting designer Lee Broom’s 2019 creation for The Shard reinterpreted holiday tradition through artisanal glasswork.
The ten-meter “Tree of Glass,” featuring 245 hand-blown pendants by glassware brand Nude, rose through Aqua Shard’s triple-height atrium. Each pendant’s strategic design—two reeded facets, two transparent—preserved the restaurant’s commanding city views while creating a crystalline dance of light against London’s skyline.
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5. Nendo’s Glitter in the Air Christmas tree, Tokyo Midtown
Above Nendo’s Glitter in the Air Christmas tree for Tokyo Midtown, Japan (Photo: Nendo)
Above Nendo’s Glitter in the Air Christmas tree for Tokyo Midtown, Japan (Photo: Nendo)
Nendo’s Glitter in the Air Christmas tree for Tokyo Midtown, Japan (Photo: Nendo)
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In 2023, Japanese design studio Nendo reimagined Tokyo Midtown’s Christmas centrepiece through kinetic art. The 7.5-meter champagne-gold structure, animated by 416 precisely controlled fans, transformed polyhedral cutouts into a mesmerising dance of light.
This mechanical constellation, programmed to create patterns from spiral formations to rippling waves, extends its choreographed display throughout the complex, unifying the space in a profusion of seasonal shimmer.
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6. Es Devlin’s Singing Tree, V&A Museum, London
Es Devlin’s Singing Tree at the V&A Museum, UK (Photo: V&A)
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In 2018. Es Devlin’s 2018 Victoria & Albert Museum Christmas installation manifested as a cloud of illuminated poetry.
The celebrated stage designer, known for her work with U2 and Beyoncé, transformed visitor-contributed words into a luminous linguistic sculpture. This participatory piece, merging human and machine-generated voices, would later inspire Britain's pavilion at Dubai Expo 2020.
Read more: 5 gorgeous restaurants in museums around the world
7. Anna Lomax’s All Lit Up! tree, V&A Museum, London
Designer Anna Lomax’s All Lit Up! tree for London’s Victoria and Albert museum's South Kensington Grand Entrance (Photo: V&A)
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This year at the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Grand Entrance, designer Anna Lomax’s “All Lit Up!” installation reimagines the traditional Christmas tree through the lens of contemporary art and architectural heritage.
The luminous sculpture, rising from a metallic plinth amid the museum’s historic columns, transforms the classical space into a meditation on seasonal joy and innovation. Illuminated by LED lights, London’s Jailmake studio engineered the spiral column and drew inspiration from the museum’s iconic dome columns while introducing a modern interpretation of festive tradition.
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Jennifer Choo is Regional Managing Editor of Tatler Homes, covering architecture, interior design, and art across Asia. Based in Malaysia, she oversees regional content on luxury residential design and contemporary art collections. Legally trained but choosing to pursue her passion for design, she previously led notable design publications and worked as an interior stylist and art consultant for property developers, design firms, and private clients.
