Mail boxes are one of the landmarks in contemporary urban landscapes. They constitute nodes in a network, where people can leave their messages to be sent to somebody else, thus creating and reinstating the network itself. Recently, the final step in the privatisation of mail services in the Netherlands took place: the restyling of the Dutch mail box. It’s not so much its new form that attracts the attention, as the change of its colour. It used to be bright red, but now it has been turned into orange. Every household in the Netherlands received several letters to mark this change, one of these contained an orange envelope to be sent free of charge. The company stresses the Dutch royal connotations of the colour to present the change as an improvement. But i will miss the screaming red landmarks and may even forget where they used to be, despite the fact that their place has been taken over by their subtle orange spin-offs.
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