Traffic Light Tree

The lowdown

Near Canary Wharf stands one of London's most playful public artworks, the Traffic Light Tree, a steel sculpture sprouting seventy-five fully working traffic lights from its branches, all blinking and changing in their own random rhythm. The French artist Pierre Vivant made it in 1998, the lights deliberately ignoring the traffic to comment on the restless energy of the city.

Once marooned on a busy roundabout, it now stands near Billingsgate where you can get closer. It is free to admire, mesmerising after dark, and a wonderfully daft sight that makes drivers and walkers alike do a double take.