Nearly a decade ago we produced a symbol for UK government building projects using a photographic sapling that threw a full-grown oak tree as its shadow.
Not earth-shattering, but for late-nineties central government a signal that design needn’t always be dreadful. It appeared on panels all over the UK, alongside the words ‘building for the future’.
We didn’t really think of it again until last weekend, when walking through Paris, we discovered this homage (scroll down this page to see). With the slightly post-modern addition of an orange crane, here was ‘building for the future’ reborn, along with with words that translate clumsily as ‘To renovate, to embellish, to last. To build our future’.
Perhaps the crane/tree was done ten years ago and we had actually ‘borrowed’ it from someone in Paris.
Yes, perhaps.
