Location: Paraíso Square. Zaragoza. Spain

Year: 2019

With: Alejando Alda, Laura Martínez, Pablo Sebastián, SSTT Municipales Ayto Zaragoza

Promoter: Zaragoza City Council

Producer/installer: Ximénez Iluminación sl / UTE Alumbrado Zaragoza

Photos: Irene Ruiz / Sebastián Arquitectos

Christmas in Zaragoza brights again. A strategic plan of Xmas lighting has been planned in several places throughout the city, and in this 2019 everything has started again with an awesome Christmas tree in Basilio Paraiso plaza, one of the most important points of the city, in the confluence of María Agustín St., Gran Vía St., Aragón Square and Paseo de la Independencia St.

The image of this tree in the distance appears evocative, but as we approach it we discover both an innovative and contemporary geometry.

This year we conmemorate the 150th anniversary of Santiago Ramon y Cajal’s joining to medicine lecture halls of the University of Zaragoza takes place. Ramón y Cajal was an important local scientific, winner of Nobel Award of Medicine in 1906.

A series of vital impulses goes through the tree, feed by a nucleus in the apex, and feeding the different nodes along the cone that beat at its pace. Arbol del Paraíso (Paradise tree) is both life and light.

The tree geometry and patterns are inspired by Cajal´s fabulous drawings about nervous system and synaptic theory, the transmission of electric nervous impulses through neurons.

Inside a natural tree lives under the light of this big lighting tree, a magical place where geometry, lights, and colors explode as synaptic connections