[Planning and building with responsibility towards society]

Comprehensive general provisions in the field of social legeslation and an excellent building programme have provided essential pre-requisites for therapeutic work and rehabilitation procedures for the disabled. Less favourable, however, is the public attitude vis-à-vis the societal responsibilities. In the building sector this is reflected in the poor quality of the architectural environment, e.g., unimaginative layout plans, careless building agglomerations, and town planning developments determined by economic interests, all causative factors to disabilities and fruitless rehabilitation efforts. Depending upon the planners' and architects' understanding of the constructed environment as a decisive influential factor on the individual and society's behaviour the town planning and architectural prerequisites for integration, community living and solidarity will be provided, or not. Also, the individual performance of the building experts determine whether, for the disabled citizens, too, the houses, flats, towns and regions produce a friendly or inhospitable atmosphere, or no atmosphere at all. We must call for an architecture with artistic quality based on the liberal and social principles of our basic civil rights.