Table of Contentss

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Dinosaur

Wright Brothers

Gettysburg

Pertified Forest

Rocky Mountain

Cecil Doty

Conclusion

Bibliography

Appendix I

Appendix II

Appendix III

Appendix IV

Mission 66 Visitor Centers Chapter 1

Mission 66 Construction Continues

During the early years of Mission 66, several visitor centers were planned for locations throughout the park: a small facility at Pool Creek, "branch" visitor centers at significant points (actually elaborate wayside stations), and a headquarters with offices and general orientation materials. The headquarters/visitor center was controversial, not for its architecture, but because of its disputed location; both Utah and Colorado hoped to claim the new building. Even before the dedication of Quarry Visitor Center, Conrad Wirth directed a public hearing on Dinosaur's continuing Mission 66 program. Six years later, in 1964, a site was chosen in Artesia, Colorado. [69] The building was located off Route 40 at the junction of the road to Echo Park and a scenic viewpoint at Harpers Corner from which visitors could see the Yampa and Green Rivers flowing undisturbed through their ancient canyons. The Artesia Headquarters was as ordinary as Quarry Visitor Center was unusual. Its most defining characteristic, a veneer of rough-cut masonry, closely resembled the facade of a prominent downtown building. [70] Visitors approach a courtyard area equipped with restrooms and a covered patio. Beyond the comfort station is "oasis porch," an additional shaded space with benches, and to the left, the entrance to the visitor center lobby. Small interpretive exhibits share space with the shop and information desk. The auditorium on the right side of the building is still used to show the orientation movie. Park Service offices can be entered from the lobby, but are not part of the visitors' experience. Decked out in a colorful, highly textured masonry pattern, this visitor center could appear to be "harmonizing" with just about any park environment. Although unoriginal in terms of function, the building displays a comforting attention to detail and a permanence appropriate to its setting. The architects, Arthur K. Olsen & Associates of Salt Lake City, had recently designed a visitor center for Capitol Reef in Torrey, Utah.

Figure 18. Headquarters, Dinosaur National Monument, Artesia, Colorado, 1998. (Photo by author.)

By the time Mission 66 planning at Dinosaur was focused on the Artesia Headquarters, Anshen and Allen were busy with a new visitor center in Sequoia National Park. Park planners were eager to develop a headquarters for the Giant Forest district because of its proximity to the Sequoia grove, and envisioned a facility with both visitor and administrative accommodations. As far as architectural style, the planning prospectus noted that the "present trend in design is toward conventional modernism." In their design for a woodland visitor center, Anshen and Allen managed to avoid convention without creating a spectacle. The Lodgepole Visitor Center appeared decades distant from the firm's futuristic work in the desert. With its peaked roof, rough wood paneling, and boulders, the building was a modernist version of a rustic lodge. But where the CCC might have used mortise and tenon construction and peeled log columns, Anshen and Allen chose steel bolts and girders. The roof was raised seam metal, the walls paneled, and the boulders not as bold as those gathered in the 1930s. Inside, the roof features exposed beams, the hallmark of the rustic interior. Even though rustic forms and techniques are imitated, the architects did not attempt to disguise their materials. As a result, they achieved a utilitarian interpretation of rustic suitable for a modern development program.

The firm of Anshen and Allen, overseen in 2000 by principal Derek Parker in San Francisco, has expanded its practice with offices in Los Angeles, Baltimore, Sarasota, and London. [71] The firm specializes in academic, advanced technology, healthcare, and commercial buildings, as well as large-scale planning. Recent international work includes the Guangzhou World Hospital in China, the New Norfolk and Norwich Hospital in the United Kingdom, and Cornwell House, King's College, London. In 1995 Anshen and Allen completed an addition to Louis Kahn's Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. This design posthumously links the firm's founders, two University of Pennsylvania graduates, with their alma mater's most famous architect and one of the masters of modern architecture.

Although the Quarry Visitor Center remains essentially as it was during the Mission 66 era, the approach to the site has been significantly altered. Parking became a problem at Dinosaur as early as 1968, and in the early 1970s the entrance to the park was reconfigured to accommodate a shuttle service for use during peak hours. The new design involved obliterating a portion of the original spur road and building a new section with turn-offs to the visitor center parking lot and the residential and maintenance area. Today, visitors park about a mile from the site and walk a short distance to a covered area equipped with a comfort station, benches, and exhibit panels. A shuttle bus then carries them up the winding road and drops them off in front of the visitor center entrance. [72]

Quarry Visitor Center was listed in the National Register of Historic Places as part of a multiple resource nomination in 1986. [73] While other modernist Mission 66 buildings have been ridiculed for their flat roofs, concrete ramps, and cylindrical forms, Quarry Visitor Center receives more praise than criticism. Even as its foundation continues to move, the radical aspects of the building are accepted. One reason for this tolerance is that the modern style seems appropriate in the rocky, almost lunar environment of Dinosaur National Monument. Another reason for the building's success is its fulfillment of a larger purpose. The structure houses remains that are "living" exhibits; the site and its building are one. Modern achievements in the manufacture of tempered glass were a prerequisite of the design. Like many of the best modern buildings, Quarry Visitor Center succeeds not only because of design factors, but through the accidents of location and program. As time has told, modernist buildings are most admired when they fulfill a purpose no other style could satisfy quite as well. Quarry Visitor Center is such a building.

Although the new visitor center was not the first modern facility constructed by the Park Service, it was the most original and the most famous early example of its type. Major architectural journals featured photographs and copies of plans, and their articles included notice of the Mission 66 program. Director Wirth realized he was going out on a limb with Quarry Visitor Center, but felt that the "bold move" would result in a building of "world-renown" and "attract thousands of people." [74] In retrospect, this calculated decision not only helped protect Dinosaur from the threat of a dammed Echo Park, but also launched the development effort that Wirth believed the salvation of the National Park Service.

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/allaback/vc1f.htm