Design and Naturalistic Style
Early plans for the national parks focused on responding to specific functional needs, such as good roads and accommodations, rather than overall design or formal planning. An “official” design ethic for the parks came in 1918, two years after the National Park Service was established. The Secretary of the Interior wrote to the Director of the NPS, setting down policies and guidelines for the new bureau.
The Secretary’s letter covered a number of issues. The influence of design professionals was clearly evident with regard to buildings and their place in the landscape. Secretary Franklin K Lane wrote:
In the construction of roads, trails, buildings, and other improvements, particular attention must be devoted always to the harmonizing of these improvements with the landscape. This is a most important item in our programs of development and requires the employment of trained engineers who either possess a knowledge of landscape architecture or have a proper appreciation of the esthetic value of park lands. All improvements will be carried out in accordance with a preconceived plan developed in special reference to the preservation of the landscape.[6]
In addition, Lane stated that any improvement activities would be undertaken by its “Section of Landscape Engineering,” and that each improvement would blend harmoniously into a carefully considered scheme
. . . in order to secure a maximum of beauty and convenience with a minimum of interference with natural conditions. . . . It is an invariable rule that no structure of importance, whether for the Service or the public operators, can be erected until the approval of the Landscape Engineer has been secured, both as to location and design.[7]
These words represent the underlying basis of the distinct style of design that came to be known as NPS Rustic. Over the years Lane’s statement became a charter for the NPS’ design program, and for the next twenty years this philosophy was faithfully followed in the nation’s parks, including Crater Lake.
In America, antecedents of the Rustic style can be traced to the writings of 19th century Landscape Architect Andrew Jackson Downing. Influenced by British landscape traditions and writing in the mid-1800s, Downing espoused rural ideals for landscape gardening and design. By the turn of the century, the fancy gardens of the Victorian era had given way to the simple, economic, “naturalistic” and “informal” gardens championed earlier by Downing. Journals and landscape design books of the day popularized the style that drew its inspiration directly from nature. In their writings, landscape architects and horticulturists, particularly Frederick Law Olmsted, Henry H. Hubbard, and Frank Waugh, set down principles for designing in the naturalistic style. These principles, in turn, set the framework for the design values and philosophy of the Rustic style.
At its best, the Rustic style achieved sympathy with the natural surroundings and with the past. The style became the means in which functional architecture was brought into natural environments in a visually pleasing and nonintrusive manner. Characteristics such as the use of natural materials used in proper scale, the avoidance of rigid, straight lines, and the visual character of a structure that appeared rugged, handcrafted, and built by pioneer craftsmen with limited hand tools, were the essence of the Rustic style. Structures, however, were always intended to be subordinate to their surroundings. The features to be preserved, emphasized, and appreciated in the parks were the site’s natural features and not the man-made ones. In the Rustic philosophy, the natural features were the overriding factors in determining the design vocabulary for both individual buildings and entire developments in the national parks. [8]
