Ignorance is strength.

SIR: This ominous, grave statement in 1984 by George Orwell whose 100th anniversary of his birth we celebrated last year--can also be applied to us involved in planning and building in our terrestrial space. We are living in times, when really 'WAR IS PEACE' and 'FREEDOM IS SLAVERY' in many places on this globe.

So it is urgent we subscribe ourselves to that ethical oath of sustainability you propose (AR Nov, p37), with all its physical ramifications, well known already, but mostly ignored. The ecology, the process of living creatures and material structures: geological and man made, are exposed, as we perceive it, to changing play of functions, where our intentions are not less disastrous as those of nature.

More than thirty years have passed since we became conscious together with Buckminster Fuller, that we are on this planet of ours as on a spaceship of limited dimensions and of restricted resources. Are we aware that the atmosphere to breathe is not very thick above our terrestrial ground? Will we have it for ever, with trees burning, floods even in the desert?

Architects and engineers alike must take, as you write, 'inventive efforts' to design and to build better, that is in harmony with nature to be saved, where we live now and tomorrow.

I do appreciate the selection for your article on 'Decency and Forethought' of two contrasting, but environmentally responsible architects, visionary in difficult circumstances. Look at the late development of Frank Lloyd Wright's Broadacre, one year before his death at the age of 90--at his cross-road solution. What a contrast to that other abysmal 'spaghetti' traffic planners design.

As for Pessac (1925)--Corbusier conceived it to be built of standardized basic reinforced-concrete elements, which were not intended to inhibit variety or change. The total plan shows also the presence of trees lined along the streets and of cultivated flowers and vegetable gardens within the spaces between the houses, a desire shared by many today in urban planning.

It seems unbelievable that entering 2004, 55 years since the publication of 1984, with all the technological advances made, we are unable to conceive a harmonious wholeness of our environment, understood as ecological imperative, supported through the social and psychological necessity of all human beings.

Yours etc

ADAM MILCZYNSKI KAAS

Pamplona, Spain