This Is Just To Say

Design Observer posted a link to a wonderful gallery of artists’ Christmas cards at the Smithsonian. Click on the big image, then make sure you click through to Dan Flavin’s minimal masterpiece. I am surprised they didn’t include this, from the Florence Knoll Bassett papers, inspired by the Erwin Hauer concrete screens installed at new husband Harry Hood Bassett’s First National Bank & Trust Company (designed by Chuck Bassett, no relation, of SOM).

It wasn’t for Christmas, but rather congratulations on their marriage, but the gallery also made me think of this lovely note from Charles and Ray Eames to Bassetts, on the occasion of their marriage, also at the Smithsonian. Ephemera like this makes me wish I could have been friends with the mid-century designers about which I often write. Though my friends are pretty crafty: they installed plastic swans and ivy on our car in lieu of a Just Married sign, in keeping with my wedding palette of white and green.

Observed

View all

Jobs

View all

Share on Social

By Alexandra Lange

Alexandra Lange is an architecture critic and author, and the 2025 Pulitzer Prize winner for Criticism, awarded for her work as a contributing writer for Bloomberg CityLab. She is currently the architecture critic for Curbed and has written extensively for Design Observer, Architect, New York Magazine, and The New York Times. Lange holds a PhD in 20th-century architecture history from New York University. Her writing often explores the intersection of architecture, urban planning, and design, with a focus on how the built environment shapes everyday life. She is also a recipient of the Steven Heller Prize for Cultural Commentary from AIGA, an honor she shares with Design Observer’s Editor-in-Chief, Ellen McGirt.