The Haas Brothers’ Strawberry Tree is both sculpture and light, a piece that bends categories while commanding attention. From its marble base, a cast-bronze trunk spirals into a canopy of Venetian glass beads, handwoven into bold blue leaves. Blown-glass fruits glow like luminous jewels, turning function into fantasy.

Nikolai and Simon Haas founded their studio in Los Angeles in 2010. Known for fusing humor, surrealism, and meticulous craftsmanship, the brothers have built a practice that moves fluidly between art, design, and architecture. Their collaborations with artisans, including the Monkeybiz beaders in Cape Town, have shaped a distinctive vocabulary rooted in both cultural tradition and material experimentation.

The Strawberry Tree continues their Beaded Tree series, created after the discovery of thousands of kilos of century-old Venetian glass beads in an abandoned factory. Those historic materials found new life through the Haas Brothers’ obsessive exploration of three-dimensional beading. The result is an evolving language of form that combines bronze, glass, and beadwork into sculptural systems of extraordinary complexity.

First shown in their 2024 exhibition Moonlight at the Nasher Sculpture Center, the Strawberry Tree will appear again this November in a major museum retrospective at the Cranbrook Museum of Art. The installation stands as a convergence of material history, imaginative design, and playful storytelling.

Like the Tree of Life installation, the Strawberry Tree underscores how rooted forms can still feel futuristic. The Haas Brothers remind us that lighting can transcend function and become an experience.

_{Images Courtesy of R & Company , Photo Credit: Kevin Todora}