Happy Christmas from C20 Society (via the Smithsons…)

As a thanks-you for our campaign to try and save APS’s Robin Hood Gardens, a C20 member and supporter who had worked for them very generously sent me this:  “an original Christmas Card of my true friends”. It’s a fragile and delicate object, printed on Japanese paper, with a labyrinth-like font, that I assume they (which of them?–I’m not sure) devised themselves.   If any Smithson experts out there know, or have any idea of a date, I’d love to hear.

Meanwhile the robust concrete of RHG sadly looks likely to last less long than the card.   Having just had mince pies with a whole load of paper conservators (there is a curiously large number of them in Walworth), I’m reflecting on just how different the challenges are when fighting for buildings rather than art works or objects.    Of course, a major part of our campaign for RHG was that it could have an economically viable future as housing, and that that would be better for the environment, the happily established residents and architectural posterity. There is still time for a re-think!