The Rome EDITION: An Artist-Designed Tree Makes the Holidays Vibrate
Forget baubles, fairy lights, and yet another branded Christmas tree: at The Rome EDITION, the holidays have detonated into a sonic creature, an unidentified object that feels as if it dropped in from a future where festivities are celebrated not with décor, but with vibration. Sara Ricciardi—who has long enjoyed dismantling design codes as if they were candy—has turned the hotel lobby into a chamber of collective resonance.
The “tree” is a vertical sculpture made of tuned aluminum rods that sing when touched, as if someone had taken a music box and stretched it to three meters. Around it, red-to-burgundy fringes from the historic Antica Fabbrica Passamanerie Massia Vittorio move like a theatrical curtain that doesn’t hide but invites. It’s not a tree to be admired from a distance; it demands to be touched, shaken, provoked. In short, it asks for participation. And in 2025, that’s no small thing.
The unveiling evening—attended by Ernesto D’Argenio, Alessia Rizzetto, Jessica Bruno, Angelo Tropea, Paola Bettinaglio, Carmen Balosin and an assortment of more or less glittering creatures—matched the tone of the work: part magic, part happening, part “wait… what exactly is going on?” General Manager Marina Rogova summed it up with zen-like clarity: one installation per year, and this time they wanted something that spoke of connection. Mission accomplished: here, connecting literally means making an object vibrate together with others.
Ricciardi, for her part, keeps reminding us that design is not a form but an attitude. “A tree to be lived,” she says. And indeed, her project is not a Christmas symbol; it’s a small urban ritual, a tactile experience of community, a way for strangers to meet through a shared frequency. Forget the holiday spirit—this is full-on emotional ecology.
In a year where everything seems slightly out of tune, it’s surprising that the right chord comes from a tree. Vibrational, sensorial, and delightfully impertinent. A Christmas that, finally, dares.
Text: Germano D’Acquisto
Photos: Niccolò Campita
