 He portrayed Cambodian culture as being as venerable and exalted as French culture and bemoaned the fact that "everything here that has withstood time, wars, and religions has now succumbed to civilization... Our steamships and automobiles generate a smoke in which champa flowers wither..." In the summer of 1917, Groslier initiated a national survey to quantify the state of traditional arts, and produced a report that predictably painted a very pessimistic picture of its present condition.Groslier drafted the architectural plans for the Museum of Cambodia ("Musée du Cambodge"), known from 1920 as the Albert Sarraut Museum, which opened its doors to the public during the Cambodia New Year on April 13, 1920.