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Presenting Nature
MENU
Design Ethic Origins
(1916-1927)
Design Policy & Process
(1916-1927)
Western Field Office
(1927-1932)
Decade of Expansion
(1933-1942)
State Parks
(1933-1942)
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Presenting Nature:
The Historic Landscape Design of the National Park Service, 1916-1942 |
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III. A POLICY AND PROCESS FOR DESIGN, 1916 TO 1927 (continued)
THE ROLE OF THE LANDSCAPE ENGINEER: CHARLES P. PUNCHARD
All improvements in the national parks—roads, trails, and buildings—were to be carefully harmonized with the landscape. Accomplishing this, the 1918 policy recognized, required the expertise of "engineers who possessed a knowledge of landscape architecture or appreciated the esthetic value of park lands." Director Mather appointed Charles P. Punchard, Jr., to fill the role of the National Park Service's first landscape engineer, as park designers were called at the time. Punchard had studied at Harvard University's School of Landscape Architecture and had worked in the firm of Evans and Punchard. At the time of his appointment, he was working for the Office of Public Buildings and Grounds in Washington, D.C., where he was in charge of the landscape development of all the public parks and reservations in the city.
Punchard's first task, beginning in July 1918, was to make a comprehensive study of the existing conditions and landscape problems of each park. During his first year, he visited seven national parks and four monuments, spending two and a half months in Yellowstone and seven months in Yosemite. He studied the various types of scenery, analyzing in detail landscape problems that required immediate solution and identifying others that needed treatment in the future. [26]
By the end of 1919, Mather reported that Punchard had already made his office one of the "most important influences for the betterment of the national parks." Punchard forged a role that combined stewardship for the park with practical day-to-day management of park facilities. Punchard gave special attention to the entrances to parks, the location and design of park buildings, the layout of campgrounds, and the physical appearance of lakes and roadsides. Punchard also initiated a process of design that involved park managers, engineers, and service officials. He consulted closely with park superintendents and provided advice in the form of consultations, sketches, working drawings, and detailed instructions for improvements. He assisted the public operators, or concessionaires, in designing and improving the physical appearance of their facilities. [27]
In Landscape Architecture, the profession's journal, Punchard described his work as one of "control," that is, maintaining a balance between the preservation of natural qualities and purely scenic areas and improvements for the comfort and the accommodation of visitors. Punchard summarized his manifold role:
The problems of the Landscape Engineer of the National Park Service are many and embrace every detail which has to do with the appearance of the parks. He works in an advisory capacity to the superintendents, and is responsible directly to the Director of the Service. He is a small fine arts commission in himself, for all plans of the concessionaire must be submitted to him for approval as to architecture and location before they can be constructed, and he is responsible for the design of all structures of the Service, the location of roads and other structures on the ground which will influence the appearance of the parks, ranger cabins, rest houses, checking stations, gateway structures, employees' cottages, comfort stations, forest improvement and vista thinning, the preservation of the timber along the park road, the design of villages where the popularity of the parks has made it necessary to provide certain commercial institutions for the comfort of the tourist and the camper, the design and location of the automobile camps, and so on through the many ramifications for all these problems. [28]
Maintaining a balance between the preservation of nature and the development of facilities was a twofold challenge. Punchard believed a balance could be achieved over time through careful planning. The secret of successful development lay in following an organized plan as closely as possible and accommodating changing conditions as they were presented. The result of such an approach would be "harmonious, attractive, well-organized, and at the same time practicable and serviceable" and would ensure the preservation of the "spirit" of the parks and the "object for which they were created." [29]
Punchard played a key role in translating the landscape policy of the National Park Service into practices that would influence the character and management of the parks. Experienced and well versed in his field, he closely studied each park and skillfully put into action plans that immediately improved its physical character. His reports and designs, furthermore, laid a solid ground, philosophically and functionally, for future landscape work.
Punchard's work followed the state-of-the-art principles for developing natural areas that had evolved out of the American landscape gardening tradition and were set forth in Henry Hubbard's Introduction to the Study of Landscape Design. Improvements were many, each requiring a specific treatment stemming from the professional landscape practice of the day, These approaches were in keeping with Mather's vision for the preservation and restoration of the native landscape and the broad progressive thought of an era that advocated conservation of natural reservations and highly acclaimed the nation's diverse native characteristics.
The length of Punchard's service was brief—less than two and a half years. Punchard, who suffered from tuberculosis, died in November 1920. As the National Park Service's first landscape designer, Punchard provided a philosophical framework for future park development and management. His many hours spent pressing the landscape architect's viewpoint would influence the decisions made by park superintendents, concessionaires, and his assistant Daniel Hull, as well as park service directors Stephen Mather and Horace Albright, for years to come.
LANDSCAPE PRESERVATION
Foremost among Punchard's responsibilities was protecting the landscape of the national parks. Mather commented in 1922, "It is in the need for protecting and safeguarding this superb natural scenery, which has been preserved for the world to see, that we have the justification of the landscape division as an integral part of the service." [30]
Preservation meant maintaining existing natural conditions and keeping views free of manmade intrusions. It also meant restoring areas where natural conditions had been lost owing to previous uses or activities. Debris and deteriorated buildings could be removed, and the sites of mining or lumber camps or old homesteads cleared. Scenery preservation was the corollary of the governing rule that the national parks be maintained in absolutely unimpaired form for the use of future generations. Mather stated,
In all of our landscape work the guiding principle followed is that the natural conditions of the park must be disturbed as little as possible consistent with the necessary development in the public interest, and where such conditions have been unnecessarily or carelessly or wrongfully changed in the past they must be restored where this can be done, and in any case made less objectionable if restoration to a state of nature is impossible. [31]
Punchard was a troubleshooter. He attacked practices that disturbed the natural appearances of the parks, especially when viewed from park roads, trails, or areas frequented by visitors. He worked with park superintendents and concessionaires to remove or screen unsightly conditions from view. One common problem was the scarring left at borrow pits after fill was gathered for road construction. In his first annual report, Punchard merely suggested that these be located in remote places and that areas burned or cut over for firewood be reforested. A year later, he adamantly called upon superintendents to close old borrow pits alongside the roads and open new ones at points screened from park roads. The removal of these "scars" was the first step toward erasing the evidence that construction had ever taken place. [32]
Punchard drew attention to diverse landscape problems, both major and minor, and provided practical solutions for eliminating unsightly conditions, called cleanup. His solutions set precedents for plans and designs that prevented the future occurrence of unsightly conditions and fostered harmonization. By controlling the numerous details that affected the visual appearance of a scenic feature, roadway, or developed area, the landscape designer could work toward maintaining the overall scenic character of the park. Cleanup entailed the removal of rubbish, dilapidated vacant structures, and even dead or dying timber alongside roads, in lakes, or at scenic features. One of his first projects of this type was the removal of dead wood and debris from the terraces at the Mammoth Hot Springs formation. [33]
In his efforts to correct existing problems, Punchard established a standard for the visual appearance of developed areas of the park. This standard was based upon the naturalistic principles of nineteenth-century landscape gardening, whereby vistas were carefully framed, plantings were used to screen unsightly views, and roadways were laid out for the most scenic effect. It also made practical use of Downing's suggestions for making secondary or service entrances and areas inconspicuous or separate from the main or public entrances. Where it was not possible to plant trees or use natural masses of trees and shrubbery for screening, fences were constructed around service yards. He worked closely with park superintendents and concessionaires to screen unsightly views in developed areas and to improve the overall scenery of campgrounds, roadways, and developed areas. In response to his suggestions, the concessionaire of the Mammoth Camp at Yellowstone redesigned the approach and grounds of the main building. On the east side, the porte-cochère and driveway were eliminated, an ornamental fence was built to enclose the service area, and a lawn planted so that the "superb" scenic view could be enjoyed without distraction; a new driveway was built at the opposite end of the building. [34]
His solutions to several problems at Sequoia indicate Punchard's concern for the treatment of natural features of great significance. Concerned with the loss of trees in the Giant Forest, Punchard urged a program of reforestation whereby new trees were planted as older ones fell across roadways. The discovery of Crystal Cave at Sequoia presented Punchard with the problem of how to open an underground cave to the public while preserving its natural character. Visitor access demanded an approach trail, an entrance, and interior pathways and lighting. Punchard's suggestions were aimed at creating the most natural development possible, "making it appear to the visitor that he has come upon the cave in the course of a walk along a trail." The entrance and approach were to remain as natural as possible, and a system of indirect lighting was recommended for the cave's interior to create "very beautiful effects." Here he established the precedent of leaving the entrance in its natural condition and building trails that led into and through the cave. The precedent established at Crystal Cave was followed in the later development of larger caverns such as Carlsbad and Mammoth. The natural arch of cave openings was considered such a desirable and picturesque element that it was imitated in the portals of tunnels along park roads and trails. [35]
Punchard's work in Yosemite laid a strong philosophical and practical basis for vegetation management based on scenic values. Punchard spent the winter of 1919 in Yosemite, where he closely studied the landscape from a historical perspective, much as Charles Eliot had studied the Massachusetts reservations. Visualizing the scenic potential of Mirror Lake in Yosemite Valley, Punchard recommended the removal of dead and dying timber and other sediments. He defended his position, saying,
The lake seems to be such a well-known and well-patronized object of interest in the valley it would hardly be consistent to allow the present condition to continue until the lake had become entirely filled with sediment. It seems that some steps should be taken for the correction of this condition, even though it covers a period of two or three years.
The drive to the lake is attractive, the setting is interesting and beautiful, and it is the only body of still water in the valley floor. With the completion of the new road to Mirror Lake its popularity will increase to such an extent that unless something is done the result will be very disappointing. [36]
Under Punchard's direction, submerged trees were likewise removed from Lake Eleanor, which had been dammed as part of the San Francisco power and water project in Yosemite. He justified this work on grounds that the visual appearance would be improved and that any pollution and danger to fish caused by the decaying timber would be eliminated. Punchard, particularly bothered by the results of artificial projects to dam natural valleys, wrote, "There is nothing more desolate in appearance than trees and underbrush . . . dead, standing in a body of water; and when the water is withdrawn and they stand on the muddy barren lake bottom and higher shore lines this appearance of desolation is augmented to the highest degree." [37]
Concerned about the encroachment of trees and shrubs upon the splendid meadows of Yosemite Valley, Punchard closely studied the natural processes and cultural influences that affected the meadows. He found that during the period of Indian occupation there had been no forests in the valley and only scattered large trees had existed; the present growth had occurred after settlement and under state control. Punchard made several trips by trail to remote areas of the park to study undisturbed mountain meadows and to gain information about the type and nature of vegetation that originally existed in the park. Recommending that trees and shrubs in Yosemite Valley's meadows be thinned and cleared, Punchard argued that such measures were necessary for two reasons, "first, to preserve the health of the larger trees and as a protection against serious fires, and second, . . . to open up and develop very interesting open spaces and vistas on the valley floor." The intention was not to reclaim the meadow floor by entirely reproducing the conditions which existed at the time of the Indians, but rather to carry out the work to "make the woodlands safer from the standpoint of fires and also produce a pleasing landscape effect." [38]
Punchard's improvements to enhance the beauty of Yosemite Valley included abandoning the portion of the valley road crossing the meadow and planting the grounds around the new power plant to give it a "setting which will enhance its value as a structure." Punchard praised the superintendent's planting of vines around the base of the concrete walls of the power plant, saying, "When these establish themselves and begin to cover the walls they will soften and break up the barren surfaces, which at the present time are uninteresting." Lawns were to be planted around the residences of park employees along "Army Row" as a first step toward beautifying the area as a village street; staff were encouraged to plant shrubs and flowers around the foundations of park buildings. Punchard designed several new residences in the area proposed for the site of the new village. He recommended that a footbridge be built across the Merced River to connect with paths throughout the valley, He suggested clearing and grading the cemetery "to achieve a more pleasing appearance." He reviewed plans for the new Yosemite Falls Camp, making sure that the development was not visible from trails and the rim of the valley walls. Punchard also worked closely with California's state architect for a fish hatchery that would be attractive and a credit to the state and the park service alike. [39]
By successfully drawing attention to the changing character and inherent beauty of the valley's native vegetation, Punchard encouraged a sense of stewardship among park staff and concessionaires for the valley's scenery and native vegetation. In 1920, the Curry Camping Company provided the labor to remove trees that were blocking the vista of the valley and cutting off views of Half Dome and Clouds Rest from the popular stopping points along Black Spring Road locally known as the "Gates of the Valley" and "Bridal Veil Vista." Recognizing the preeminent value of the meadows for their natural beauty rather than as a source of hay and fearing the loss of plants such as the mariposa lily, Yosemite's park superintendent called for an end to the mowing of Sentinel Meadow and other meadows in the valley, In 1921, the Yosemite National Park Company employed a gardener to care for its grounds and to plant native trees and shrubs to screen foundations and other objectionable views, generally improving the appearance of the company's hotels and camps. This action set the stage for the landscape and educational programs of the 1920s and 1930s that would focus on the meadow wild flowers. Punchard's pioneering concerns for the landscape character of the valley were revived in the late 1920s as the park emerged as a laboratory for natural history and landscape naturalization. [40]
Landscape engineers were concerned with the location and appearance of park roads. Ever present were the general problems of opening vistas; clearing fallen timber and brush from roadsides and scenic areas; and locating roads, trails, bridges, and other structures. As new roads and trails were funded, the landscape engineer helped locate them in relation to scenic views and natural features. Mather saw opening new roads or trails and improving existing ones as "exposing delightful landscape heretofore unknown to the public." These were essential in the development of park scenery from a landscape standpoint. [41]
Vistas dominated the landscape architect's concern for scenery preservation, and capturing scenic vistas was one of the primary forces that drove the landscape engineer's recommendations for locating roads and trails. This concern was secondary only to making sure that popular vistas remained unimpaired and free from intrusion. The clearing of timber to improve or expose vistas was an important activity and occupied some of Punchard's time in Yellowstone in 1919. Punchard directed the clearing of timber along the Tower Falls-Mammoth Hot Springs Road to open up a view of Wraith Fall and on the Upper-Basin-Thumb Road to give visitors a better view of Duck Lake, which was considered "a perfect gem in a setting of dense forests." Albright and Mather both recognized the value of this work for park development. The concern for vistas would, by the late 1920s, result in specific practices for developing scenic viewpoints. [42]
The locations of facilities, whether roads, trails, or buildings, were based either on the desire to select and develop viewpoints that revealed scenic vistas to their best advantage and that maximized the viewer's landscape experience or on the desire to protect scenic vistas from any form of artificial obtrusion or interference. In the early years of the National Park Service, the desire to develop vistas and make them accessible to the public was particularly strong. Parks therefore provided access by automobile wherever practical and allowed park concessionaires to develop accommodations at many of the most scenic locations, such as Glacier Point at Yosemite. As park visitation increased and the wear and tear of heavy visitation became more and more evident in places like Yosemite Valley, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and Sequoia's Giant Forest, the balance between providing access and protecting scenic values shifted and the character and location of developed areas changed.
In 1919, Mather reported excellent results from the thinning of trees to reveal vistas in certain parks. He saw this as an important part of the landscape engineer's work, related to preserving stands of trees along highways crossing private holdings, clearing brush and down timber along the roadside, and eliminating dead timber in flooded lakes, such as Lake Eleanor in Yosemite Park. Mather recognized, however, the difficulty of this kind of work. Not only was it costly, but it also required the cooperation of private individuals and corporations who had property rights on park waters or along roads and who were generally reluctant to cooperate. This concern led Mather to urge Congress to enlarge the boundaries of a number of parks so that private land along park roads could be acquired. He also worked out arrangements with the U.S. Forest Service to maintain roadside buffers, 100 feet in width, to either side of park approach roads that passed through national forests. [43]
The concern for preserving park scenery extended to minor details such as signs. Park signs, if they existed at all, took an assortment of rudimentary forms. Frequently they were nailed to trees. At the park superintendents' conference in Denver in 1920, the National Park Service adopted its first system of uniform signs. The system, which was already being developed at Yellowstone, called for metallic signs with green letters upon a white field that were to be mounted on posts. [44]
Even some of Punchard's minor recommendations had lasting applications. Punchard objected to labeling trees with tags and recommended that, where it was desirable to provide labels, the park service use a practice devised by the Sierra Club in its commemorative plaque to Gifford Pinchot in Muir Woods. There, an attractive bronze tablet was placed on a large boulder, which was rolled to the foot of the tree. With this solution, Punchard noted, the sign was "hardly noticeable" and "simple in design," and "the trunk of the tree has not been injured or disfigured." This method would be followed in the service's own custom of placing plaques dedicated to Stephen Mather's memory in each park beginning in the 1930s. [45]
Although many of Punchard's improvements were in themselves minor, their cumulative effect greatly enhanced the appearance of heavily visited places, such as Yosemite Valley, They moreover established precedents for landscape improvements that would be continued through the years and would be implemented in the Emergency Conservation Work of the 1930s in both state and national parks. These improvements, too, drew heavily upon the naturalistic landscape gardening tradition espoused by Andrew Jackson Downing, Henry Hubbard, Samuel Parsons, and Frank Waugh.
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