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 2

Dedication of the Visitor Center

The exterior appearance of the visitor center was significantly altered by the end of the summer, with the completion of the wooden fence shielding the parking area from a clear view of the first flight markers and buildings. In preparation for the dedication, landscape architect Lewis from EODC "inspected new planting and miscellaneous construction," and the Park Service's supervisory architect, Judson Ball, reviewed the state of the visitor center. [62] By September the walks from the visitor center to the camp buildings and the main entrance gate were complete. The information desk for the lobby was delivered and installed, and planning for a permanent display of a Wright glider replica continued. [63]

The Wright Brothers Memorial Visitor Center was dedicated on December 17, 1960, the 57th anniversary of the first flight. According to one news account, a "slim audience saddened by Friday's airliner collision over New York and Saturday's crash at Munich" attended. [64] The most memorable moment in Mitchell's recollection of the event was a speech by Maj. Gen. Benjamin D. Foulois, who actually watched the Wright brothers test their early planes and flew the country's first army aircraft. Local papers covering the dedication had only compliments for the new visitor center building, and by early December over one hundred thousand visitors had already passed through its doors. [65]

If the Wright Brothers' legacy was the main focus of dedication day, over the next few years the visitor center building would become the subject of its own articles and press releases. Progressive Architecture had given notice of the design in 1959 and, in 1961, included a floor plan, photograph of the finished building, and close-ups of the concrete wall and terrace design in its profile of "the Philadelphia School." [66] Two years later, the "Kitty Hawk Museum" was a feature of the journal's August issue. The building received praise for its orientation and planning of interior spaces that "make visiting this national park an aesthetic as well as an instructive experience." [67] Washington Post architectural critic Wolf Von Eckardt called the visitor center a "simple, but all the more eloquent, architectural statement that honors the past precisely because it does not ape it." [68] The Wright Brothers Visitor Center was also singled out in "Great Builders of the 1960's," a special section of the international publication Japan Architect (1970), in the AIA Journal's 1971 assessment of Park Service design, "Our Park Service Serves Architecture Well," and as an example of excellent government-sponsored architecture in The Federal Presence (1979). [69] The fact that Mitchell/Giurgola was hardly a household name in the early sixties, even in professional circles, speaks eloquently of the building's enthusiastic reception by the popular media. [70]

CONTINUED

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