Presenting Nature

Cover

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Overview

Stewardship

Design Ethic Origins
(1916-1927)

Design Policy & Process
(1916-1927)

Western Field Office
(1927-1932)

Park Planning

Decade of Expansion
(1933-1942)

State Parks
(1933-1942)

Appendix A

Appendix B

Bibliography

Presenting Nature: The Historic Landscape Design of the National Park Service, 1916-1942

III. A POLICY AND PROCESS FOR DESIGN, 1916 TO 1927 (continued)

DANIEL HULL AS LANDSCAPE ENGINEER (continued)

DESIGN OF PARK STRUCTURES

Hull applied his knowledge of landscape architecture and architecture from the beginning of his park service career. He explored native materials from rock to logs and studied pioneer forms such as traditional log cabins and pueblo structures. Hull's career with the National Park Service was a period of experimentation with architectural forms and the use of native building materials and primitive construction techniques that were well adapted to local natural conditions. Although functional and economical, each of his designs was unique in its materials and design. Some of the notable achievements of his park service career were the administration building in Sequoia's Giant Forest, the Falls River Entrance Station at Rocky Mountain, the administration building at Grand Canyon, the entrance building at Zion, and several community buildings and the Lake Ranger Station at Yellowstone.

His first buildings, designed in 1920 and 1921, included several large community buildings and entrance stations at Yellowstone. The community buildings for the Canyon and Old Faithful campgrounds were built of logs and featured a large room for social gathering and an information center with huge fireplaces and other comforts. The West Thumb and Falls entrances both incorporated a porte cochère and were constructed of logs. In 1921, a checking station was constructed at the Gardiner Entrance as part of a site plan that included the 1903 arch, a comfort station, space for parking, a water fountain, and a flagpole. The building harmonized with the masonry arch, being constructed of basaltic rock laid in cement mortar upon a base of flagstone set in cement. The stone-and-log checking station was designed to house a ranger and measured sixteen by fifteen feet. [88]

Also at Yellowstone, Hull designed a combination fire lookout and shelter. At an elevation of ten thousand feet, the lookout became a popular objective for visitors. The building was constructed of rough native stone and mortar (cement was mixed from melting snow) and cost $2,500. With rock walls two feet in thickness and a fireplace, the lookout could accommodate a ranger as well as provide visitors with panoramic views. In his design for the Lake Ranger Station, bold in its log construction, at Yellowstone in 1922, Hull explored the idea that the cultural character of a region's architecture could provide appropriate sources for a cultural theme and harmonious construction.

The Yosemite Museum, designed by Herbert Maier in 1924 and constructed with funds from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Foundation, set a precedent for park museums. The lower story is a fire-proof masonry-clad concrete vault while the upper story reflects the redwood shingle siding and exposed log framing that Myron Hunt had used in his design for the nearby administration building. Photographed about 1928, this view of the entrance shows the boulder-lined paths, log lamposts, and boulder curbs that characterized the village plaza in the late 1920s. ((National Archives, Record Group 79)

A number of the outstanding park buildings were donated to the parks by outside sources. The Sierra Club had built the LeConte Memorial Lodge and the Parsons Memorial Lodge in Yosemite. Mather himself had paid for the Rangers" Club, built in 1920 at Yosemite under direction of Charles K. Sumner, a San Francisco architect and practitioner of the Bay Area style. It was situated on the south side of the valley overlooking the meadow and offered expansive views up and down the valley. Sumner built it in conference with the landscape engineering division. To Punchard, the clubhouse set a standard in national park building design; he reported,

A great deal of care was given to the preparation of the plans of this building in order to provide for all the requirements, design a building harmonious in its setting, attractive in its exterior appearance and comfortable within. The architecture is original, free, and by the use of logs, stone, and shakes an attractive structure has developed. [89]

The need for park museums was first recognized in 1920, but it was several years before the park service found sources to fund construction. Starting in 1924, the construction of park museums and interpretive structures was carried out under grants from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Foundation. This funding provided both the opportunity to plan educational facilities for national parks and the challenge of exploring the principles of harmonious architectural and landscape design for park needs. Herbert Maier was hired by the American Association of Museums to design a museum for Yosemite and several museums and trailside exhibits, called nature shrines, for Yellowstone and Grand Canyon. Not only did Maier work closely with Ansel Hall, the chief naturalist, but he also worked closely with Hull's office. A decade later as a district officer for Emergency Conservation Work in state parks, Maier would become the National Park Service's foremost expert on park structures and would have great influence on the design of national and state parks in the Southwest and elsewhere.

The collaboration of Thomas Vint and Herbert Maier was fortuitous, each having similar training and a West Coast orientation in the Arts and Crafts movement. They both understood the principles and practices of naturalistic landscape design and drew ideas from it to harmonize construction with nature.

Maier's design for the museum in Yosemite Valley both suited the architectural style of Myron Hunt's administration building and boldly forged a new standard for the construction of park buildings. Opened in May 1926, the museum was a compromise solution to the architectural problem of integrating the design with that of the newly planned village and the practical problem of building in a national park, where buildings of any type were necessary evils. Furthermore, the service requested that Maier use only indigenous building materials in all visible exterior parts, namely logs, shakes, and stone. With a $75,000 grant from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Foundation, a building of substantial size was constructed, providing a fireproof vault for museum collections. Maier called his work a "structural dichotomy." A lower story framed in reinforced concrete and sheathed with rough-hewn granite blocks provided a fireproof vault, and an overhanging upper story made of log framing and hand-cut shakes provided offices. He deliberately subordinated the building to its natural setting against the towering granite walls of the valley by emphasizing its horizontality. He wrote,

To attempt altitudinal impressiveness here in a building would have meant entering into competition with the cliffs. . . . The horizontal key, on the other hand, makes the museum blend easily into the flat ground; this is restful to the eye, here everywhere drawn upward: and some distance away the building is lost to sight swallowed by the overtopping forest—point of merit in the light of what has been said of preserving parks undefiled by man's handiwork. [90]

In 1924, the same year the administration building was dedicated, work began on the Yosemite Museum. As an extension of the valley museum, a lookout was constructed on the edge of the valley rim at Glacier Point. It is likely that this lookout was the result of a collaboration between the landscape engineers and Maier, who had just begun working on the museum. It was a simple shelter with a large rectangular opening for taking in the view; it featured battered stone walls that emerged from the granite outcropping, which served as a natural flooring of stone. With open sides and an overhanging roof, it was a scaled-down and less exaggerated version of Greene and Greene's Oaklawn Waiting Station in Pasadena. With its use of native materials and simple design, it was intended to blend into the surface of the cliff where it was located. Years later, Maier would fault the proportions of its stones and the light appearance of its roof, while landscape architects would criticize its location and call for its removal. Functionally. however, the lookout was the first trailside shelter built in the park and was a direct link with the shelters that Downing and Hubbard urged be placed at scenic overlooks. It represents the origins of an educational program for national parks that drew visitors" attention outside of the village centers and offered an intellectual understanding of the scenic wonders of the park. Despite its lack of architectural sophistication, the lookout was an important prototype that linked park architecture with the nineteenth-century Schoolmaster's Hill shelter of the Olmsted firm at Franklin Park and with numerous lookouts built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in state parks in the 1930s. Such examples as the lookout at Davis Mountains State Park in Texas copied the simple floor plan and basic elevation as well as the use of stone walls and timber rafters.

Glacier Point Lookout, Yosemite National Park, was constructed in 1924. Intended as an extension of the Yosemite Museum, it featured exhibits, an open viewing window, and an observation terrace. Made of randomly-laid native stonemasonry, it was one of the first interpretive shelters designed by the National Park Service and established a model for lookouts, nature shrines, and other kinds of interpretive shelters that appeared later in other national parks and in state parks. (National Park Service Historic Photography Collection)

The design of park service buildings at Mesa Verde National Park by Superintendent Jesse Nusbaum and his wife, Aileen, explored the idea that park buildings should have a cultural theme suited to the prehistory or history of the park area. Like the work of Mary Colter, the Nusbaums' designs drew on the indigenous architecture of the Southwest and achieved solutions that used native stone and traditional construction techniques. The buildings were at once harmonious with the natural setting and suitable in their cultural allusions. The ruins of cliff dwellers and temples at Mesa Verde National Park, which were the subject of continuing excavation in the early twentieth century, offered ideal prototypes for park buildings.

The Mesa Verde buildings—the superintendent's residence (1921), administration building (1923), post office (1923), museum (1923), rangers" building (1925), and community house (1927)—reflected a fusion of indigenous materials and methods of pueblo construction with Spanish Colonial influences. Like their prehistoric antecedents, the Mesa Verde buildings were flat-roofed structures whose walls were rough masonry of relatively evenly sized blocks of local sandstone joined with mud mortar. The roof was supported by peeled timbers called vigas that were arranged laterally and protruded through the outer stone walls. A masonry parapet surmounted each building forming a continuous surface with the load-bearing and slightly battered walls. Distinctive architectural details included corner fireplaces, exposed vigas, latia ceilings, corbeled posts, lintels made from adzed timbers, and decorative grillwork. [91]

The Nusbaums' achievements would prove extremely important to the design of later state and national park buildings in the Southwest. This work was the first serious attempt to incorporate the influence of cultural traditions, particularly indigenous ones, into modern buildings for park use. The fact that the work was based on a detailed study of original examples and ethnographic reports distinguished it from other less serious attempts of the early 1920s. The $1,500 ceiling on the cost of park structures still limited the design possibilities for park structures. Except for advising on "donated" buildings such as the Rangers" Club or the Yosemite Museum and reviewing the design of the park concessionaires, the landscape engineers had little opportunity to work on larger construction projects.

Hull was eager to improve the building program and recognized that both additional funds and better topographic surveys were needed. In 1925, Hull called for surveys of sufficient scale to indicate all natural features, trees, and rocks. Concerned with the strict limitations on building the much-needed park structures, Hull recommended in 1926 that the $1,500 clause be stricken or doubled, that maps as a base for planning be procured, that more careful data be gathered on the costs of proposed structures, and that five-year comprehensive plans be prepared for each park. [92]

COLLABORATION WITH CONCESSIONAIRES

One of Hull's greatest areas of interest was working with concessionaires on the design of facilities that would provide for visitor's comfort. It seems clear that Hull had avid architectural interests and viewed this work as an opportunity to learn from experienced and creative architects hired by the concessionaires and to work out his own ideas on harmonious construction on a much larger scale than he was able to in the design of simple and functional government buildings. He was greatly inspired by Colter's work at Grand Canyon, directly borrowing her use of log and stone in his own design for the administration building. [93]

About 1923, Hull began to work closely with Gilbert Stanley Underwood, whom he had met at the University of Illinois in 1912. Underwood graduated with a master's degree in architecture from Harvard in 1923 and returned to California where he began seeking park commissions. Unsuccessful in his bid for the administration building at Yosemite, Underwood did receive the commission for the park's post office. In 1923, Underwood, apparently with Hull's support, began to work as an architect for the Utah Parks Company formed by the Union Pacific Railroad, which was taking a leading role in developing the national parks of southern Utah for tourism. When Hull moved the landscape engineer's operation to Los Angeles in 1923, it was to share Underwood's offices. It seems that Hull and Vint worked directly on designs for some of the smaller buildings associated with the developments in Utah. These working arrangements facilitated the service's review of plans and made it possible for the Underwood firm to work out solutions for the parks. In addition to the Zion and Bryce facilities, Underwood designed the Ahwahnee Lodge in Yosemite Valley and later the development of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Hull and Vint continued to work closely with the Underwood firm until 1927, when the Western Field Office was organized in San Francisco and the landscape engineering function moved again. [94]

Following the concept he developed at Zion National Park, architect Gilbert Stanley Underwood designed 15 deluxe cabins and a small centrally located pavilion for the concessionaire at Bryce Canyon National Park. Located in a pine grove and reached by meandering paths, the cabins were built to harmonize with the natural setting. They had log slab siding, rubble masonry foundations and chimneys of locally quarried stone, and porches of peeled log railings and posts. (Laura Soulliere Harrison)

About 1923, a major change in concessionaires" facilities occurred, apparently at the urging of Stephen Mather. Underwood's plan for a large hotel at Zion had been approved and highly complimented by the Commission of Fine Arts. Hull praised the project plans, which he said resulted from a study of the site, "having always in mind the necessity of keeping unharmed the splendid scenery of this area." Not only were the buildings of a high quality, but a comprehensive landscape plan was also developed for the entire development. Mather, however, opposed the idea of a large hotel, and Underwood redesigned the plan in the form of a smaller lodge or pavilion with outlying cottages and service buildings, establishing a design precedent that would be followed for many years. By 1926, Hull reported that a comprehensive landscape plan," was "being carried out in the vicinity of the new lodge" and that the National Park Service had approved a utility group proposed by the concessionaire. Several features distinguished the site plan and the design of the pavilion and cabins. The buildings were sited far back from the canyon rim against a rocky hillside that provided a scenic backdrop for the centrally located pavilion. A one-way curvilinear drive enabled tour buses and automobiles to approach and depart from the two-story pavilion, which featured a lobby. dining hall, and about 75 guest rooms. Passengers disembarked and entered the lobby through a porte-cochère made of massive piers of rustic stonemasonry. The roof of the porte-cochère functioned as a second-story observation deck surrounded by a parapet of stone piers and log rails, from which visitors could view the canyon. The grounds before the lodge were fashioned into a cactus garden edged with stone boulders and paths leading to the rim. Standard and Deluxe cottages, fashioned from native pine and stone, were nestled in the surrounding woodland and reached by paths leading from the central pavilion. Parking was placed behind the pavilion. [95]

Underwood's designs were in keeping with the National Park Service's program for rustic design and native materials yet advanced the idea of "rustic" into a design idiom that had far-reaching influence on government-built structures and the overall definition of principles of rustic design. Underwood creatively adopted features such as the porte-cochère, jerkinhead gables, bands of small-paned windows, elongated dormers, clerestories, truss roofing, and massive stone fireplaces. He explored many features of the Adirondack style, the work of the Bay Area architects, and the work of designers of the early park lodges. He achieved "rustic" solutions with modern building materials such as stained and textured concrete and plate-glass windows, and he successfully incorporated into his designs landscape features such as terraces, stairways, stone parapets, loop entry drives, and native plantings. The work of Underwood strongly reinforced and expanded the principles emerging from the Landscape Division's own work. Like the collaboration with Maier, the association with the Underwood firm stimulated and enriched the Landscape Division's inventiveness and expression in the design of park structures. This collaboration also enabled them to work out landscape plans for the new developments.

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