Long live the Christmas card – a ritual that feels increasingly endangered in our digital age. The simple act of putting pen to paper and sending wishes inked in black or blue is, in a word of instant messages, profoundly gratifying.
In celebrating this venerable tradition, we found ourselves asking: what sort of Christmas card does an architect send? What festive missives emerged from the minds of Charles and Ray Eames, Frank Lloyd Wright, or Ludwig Mies van der Rohe? We scoured archives, museums and foundations to find out.
The discoveries are a delight: historic cards that are clever, charming and whimsical – testaments to the creativity of the 20th century’s greatest architectural minds. Read on for a look at festive designs from the Eameses, Wright et al, where holiday cheer meets design brilliance.
Charles and Ray Eames
These cards were illustrated by Charles Eames between 1927 and 1931, before he met his wife and creative partner, Ray. Over the years, he created hand-drawn Christmas cards for family and friends, many of them lithographs enhanced with hand colouring. Among the collection are a wreathed door drawn for Fred and Lucia Woermann, the parents of his first wife, Catherine (top); and a card depicting Charles, Catherine and their daughter Lucia standing on a cartoon-like map of St Louis, Missouri (bottom).
These photographic Christmas cards were created by Charles and Ray – posed and photographed by the couple in the 1940s.
Frank Lloyd Wright
This 1907 Christmas card, created in Oak Park, Illinois, is rendered in ink and pencil on tracing paper. It features text drawn from a poem titled ‘The Four Seasons in Four Verses’ in Book Four, Freedom, of Wright’s An Autobiography.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
A card that Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed and sent to architect Carter Manny in 1968.
Alison Smithson
In December 2025, Roca Gallery in London launched an exhibition of Christmas cards by Alison Smithson, a British architect and key figure in the brutalist movement, who collaborated with her husband Peter Smithson on projects such as Robin Hood Gardens and Hunstanton Secondary Modern School. Alison created cards annually, a tradition now continued by her daughter Soraya, who organised the exhibition.
Louis H Sullivan
This card was designed and signed by Louis H Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright's mentor and one of his key influences, in 1920. Sullivan is often called the ‘father of the skyscraper’, with key works including the Wainwright Building in Missouri, the Guaranty (Prudential) Building in New York, and Chicago’s Carson Pirie Scott Store.
Denys Lasdun
Denys Lasdun was one of the UK’s key authors of modernist and brutalist architecture, known for projects such as the National Theatre and the Royal College of Physicians in London. This 1950 card, titled 'Egophile', depicts Lasdun alongside fellow architects Maxwell Fry, Jane Drew and Lindsey Drake as classical columns.
This card was sent to rather than received by Lasdun, and features a drawing of the Royal College of Physicians in Regent’s Park. Signed ‘from the medical orderlies’, it appears to have been sent by the staff there.
Jane Drew and Max Fry
This card, designed in 1953, depicts Chandigarh, India, where British modernist architect Jane Drew worked on urban planning and housing projects alongside Le Corbusier.
This card, from 1948, shows the home and office at 63 Gloucester Place, London, which Drew shared with her husband and creative partner, Max Fry, who frequently collaborated with her on educational, housing and institutional projects.
Ernő Goldfinger
Ernő Goldfinger, the Hungarian-born British modernist architect known for brutalist residential buildings in London such as Trellick Tower and Balfron Tower, created this Christmas card in 1938 for himself and his wife Ursula.
Chamberlin, Powell & Bon
The architect trio behind the Barbican Estate created many Christmas cards over the course of two decades. These cards, produced between 1960 and 1982, drew on their extensive travels to Italy, Spain, Egypt, India and the USA, reflecting the wide-ranging influences that informed their work, yet maintaining a distinctly brutalist sensibility.
Stephen Rowland Pierce
Stephen Rowland Pierce was a British architect and town-planning consultant, known mainly for his work on Norwich City Hall (1938), widely regarded as one of Britain’s finest interwar public buildings. This 1920 Christmas card, rendered in black and white, depicts a townhouse in the modern style of the period.
Michael Ventris
Michael Ventris worked primarily on postwar housing and school projects, his modernist designs emphasising functionality and clarity. This 1946 Christmas card, sent to his son Nikki, shows Father Christmas at an architectural drawing board with a sack full of miniature houses by his side.
Raymond McGrath
Raymond McGrath was chief architect for the BBC in the 1930s, designing studios and broadcasting facilities with a functional, modernist aesthetic. His 1930 black-and-white card depicts a fantastical underground house called The Burrow.
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