542 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1962 



This flood of destruction has been running for over a century and 

 in many places is still spreading at an accelerated pace. The havoc to 

 the landscape is too well known to need reiterating, but perhaps less 

 well known are the re-creative efforts being made in many parts of 

 the world to stem the flood and rebuild a fertile landscape capable 

 not only of feeding but also of refreshing mankind. 



Some of the greatest efforts in creative landscape are being made 

 by two small countries, entirely different in climate, geography, and 

 history. Holland and Israel are each building a new landscape, one 

 from the sea and the other from the desert. 



In the case of Holland this is nothing new. They have been doing 

 it for 900 years, but their present approach to the problem is new. In 

 the old days their sole objects were to provide fertile land and sweet 

 water and to hold back the sea, and their works of reclamation were 

 carried out mechanically to achieve this with the greatest material 

 economy. But today their object is no longer confined to the pro- 

 duction of a food factory. The newly reclaimed polders are also 

 designed as pleasant places in which to live. Social needs, recreation, 

 and beautiful landscape are all added to the basic requirements of 

 mere existence, while the study of every variation in soil potential and 

 local climate is resulting in a varied and organic pattern as opposed 

 to the mechanical outlines of the old polders.'' 



In Israel the basis of their new landscape is irrigation of the desert; 

 but here again the creation of so many acres of land for crops is not 

 their only consideration. The land is also their home. Step by step 

 with the new fertility go the planting of shade trees, the provision 

 of parks and gardens, the formation of a complete and complex 

 landscape within which men may live full lives. 



These two examples show the possibilities of creating a fully 

 humanized landscape, a new habitat, purpose-designed for civilized 

 men with all their varied needs. The conditions have been unusual, 

 for a blank page was presented on which the landscape builders, in 

 both cases people who had already attained to a high state of civil- 

 ization, could design a setting for a known condition of life. The more 

 usual case is for a landscape and a civilization to evolve slowly to- 

 gether, as has happened in Britain, or for a civilization to grow and 

 then invade a landscape which is already functioning in some degree of 

 natural balance. This was the case in the United States of America. 



In the case of Britain, the problem is to find the right adjustment 

 between the new needs of expanding population and the old land- 

 scape. We have to reconcile the desire for mobility, increased com- 

 munications and less arduous work, all goals which require industry 



" See "Designing on New Land," by Arthur Glilcson, in "Space for Living," published by 

 Djambatan. 



