OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS 



125 



"Union," and Mr. Van der Swaelmen, the 

 head of its Technical Division, of a set of 

 "Instructions," so-called, or suggestions to be 

 followed by the various Subsidiary National 

 Centres. These will enable each of these 

 groups to work in harmony with the Central 

 Organization in the task of collecting, ex- 

 amining, digesting and preparing for publica- 

 tion the brief reviews of contemporaneous 

 world-wide material in regard to civic affairs. 



It seemed important that these Instructions 

 should be issued not only in French but in 

 English, therefore the first rough draft pre- 

 pared in French by Mr. Van der Swaelmen, 

 was translated by your representative and 

 amended by him to meet American conditions 

 as he understood them. In the course of its 

 preparation, too, we were fortunate to have 

 short visits in Brussels from Mr. Ewart G. 

 Culpin of the English Garden Cities Asso- 

 ciation, as well as leaders in the movement 

 from Amsterdam and Milan, so we were able 

 to incorporate the English, Dutch and Italian 

 viewpoints, — those of France had already been 

 ascertained. It will be readily appreciated 

 from this brief statement that the preparation 

 of these "Instructions" was only accomplished 

 after many weeks during which there were al- 

 most daily conferences and discussions, all of 

 which was most interesting. 



The present problem is; "How can Ameri- 

 ca best aid in this movement, and particularly 

 what sort of helpful action can the A. S. L. A. 

 take in the matter?" Everyone with whom 

 the writer has discussed the problem (and he 

 has let no opportunity pass during the past 

 year to do this at City Planning and other 

 meetings, as well as by correspondence) 

 agrees that the basic idea is good. While it 

 has been suggested that some one of the sev- 

 eral private organizations interested in civic 

 affairs might handle this matter, there is a 

 very general agreement that it is too much of 

 a proposition for any such private agency to 

 finance, and that the best way would be to 

 have the Government at Washington take it 

 in hand in some form, — one suggestion being 

 that if we ever get the Tinkham-Calder bill 

 and its Housing and Town Planning Bureau, 

 this might well become one of its functions, — 

 that such a Bureau in co-operation with the 

 Library of Congress could organize an .Ameri- 

 can Centre of Civic Documentation which 

 could then affiliate witli the Brussels office 

 and serve as outlined above. The writer has 

 interviewed Librarian Herbert Putnam of the 

 Library of Congress, who is much interested 



and has offered to co-operate in any way and 

 to have the Library of Congress serve as the 

 depository of any such Civic Documentation 

 as might be assembled in America, — they al- 

 ready have a large amount of such Documen- 

 tation and receive all current publications on 

 this subject, and would gladly rearrange this 

 to meet our needs. But the Tinkham-Calder 

 bill and its proposed Bureau seem to be either 

 dead or side-tracked, and another suggestion, 

 perhaps the best to date, is that the Division 

 of Building and Housing now established in 

 the Bureau of Standards under the Depart- 

 ment of Commerce, might well do as proposed 

 above in connection with the Housing Bureau 

 of the Tinkham-Calder bill. A Resolution 

 favoring such action has now been passed by 

 our Society and good progress is being made 

 toward accomplishing its stipulations. 



The Union of International Associations, 

 "Universitie Internationale" and other Affili- 

 ated Organizations: 



Here is another activity or group of activi- 

 ties in which those who originally organized 

 the "Comite Ncerlando-Belge d'.\rt Civique" 

 are now particularly interesting tliemsclves. 

 The active and important International As- 

 sociations at the present time affiliated with 

 this Union include: 



Tlie International Union of Cities and its 

 Centre of Civic Documentation, which we have 

 been considering. 



The International Institute of Bibliography, 

 the organization that has among other notable 

 achievements prepared the decimal system of 

 classification above alluded to, now universal- 

 ly known and adopted. 



The International Museum, still quite in- 

 adequately equipped, but thanks to the Belgian 

 Government, provided with excellent and 

 ample quarters in the "Palais Mondial," a 

 former Exposition building. Here it is pro- 

 posed to assemble (and a good beginning has 

 been made) "the elements of world-wide cul- 

 ture, past and present and through the meet- 

 ings of these International Associations, offer 

 these to all, particularly those who are in- 

 terested in the future general progress of civi- 

 lization now rapidly becoming universal." 



The International Library, arranged par- 

 ticularly to serve these International Asso- 

 ciations. Books, pamphlets, reports and so on, 

 especially those having international interests 

 are solicited and will be put to good use. 



The International Union of Intellectual 

 Workers, definitely organized in September 

 19'71. Your representative was able to attend 



