Over several years of implementing the rustic idiom in the parks, the NPS continually strove to perfect the techniques required to achieve visually appealing and well-proportioned rustic structures. Awkward examples were followed by ever-improving and more eloquent examples. The relationship between landscape architecture and architecture continued to strengthen, and the landscape itself became an integral part of every design.[9]
In 1927 the NPS’ Landscape Division was transferred to San Francisco, where a Western Field Office was created, combining landscape design work with the NPS’ Civil Engineering Division and the Bureau of Public Roads. This joint office brought together a number of professional disciplines for an era of unparalleled development in the parks. Concurrently, park appropriations significantly increased, leading to an increase in park staff and general development activities. It was during this time that comprehensive planning efforts were formalized, with master plans prepared for each national park. Landscape architect Thomas C. Vint headed up the San Francisco office, becoming the dominant and controlling figure in the implementation of planning in the parks — planning that was manifested in the Rustic style.
As a culmination of its efforts to introduce and implement design in the national parks that followed the principles of the Rustic style, the NPS printed a book that synthesized information about the style. The NPS commissioned Albert H. Good to create a manual of appropriate park designs. Published in 1935, Park Structures and Facilities was directed at government agencies and professionals charged with designing buildings and structures in natural or recreational areas. It quickly became the foundation for state and national park design. The book included a treatise on appropriate design for these areas. Various features, from buildings to drinking fountains, were described in a text that was heavily illustrated with photographs, plans, and elevations. The NPS was confident that by pulling together a collection of the “best” examples of the Rustic style in one place, an understanding of the style would be enhanced and stimulate further developments and improvements in design. The bureau was correct in its assumption: the book sold out almost immediately and was reprinted as a three-volume set three years later under the title Park and Recreation Structures. It had become an “indispensable architectural pattern book.”[10]
Park and Recreation Structures set down several fundamental principles for designing in the Rustic style. Both structures and landscape were addressed. The visual success of the finished structure was directly related to how various native materials were combined, the scale and massing of the structure, its siting on the landscape, the appropriate use of color, and the appearance of craftsmanship in construction. Essentially, park structures that looked as though they had “sprung from the soil” were “of the elect.”[11] In addition to guidelines for buildings and structures, Park and Recreation Structures made recommendations for minimizing the visual impact of these features through the use of plant materials. While the goal was to site buildings in a natural setting, this was not always possible. In order to “gracefully obliterate the otherwise unhappy line of demarcation between buildings and ground,” it was advised that vegetation be introduced along the structural foundations, to soften the edge between earth and structure. Another recommendation suggested the use of rocks around building foundations, “artfully contrived,” to give the impression of natural rock outcroppings occurring next to the building. It is of interest to note that Good, while espousing the use of natural and native materials, also advocated “deception” when necessary in order to attain the desired rustic look. Changing technologies in building methods permitted stone bridges, drinking fountains, and other structures or features to be built using modern materials like concrete. In order to achieve the natural appearance desired, these features — with their concrete infrastructure — were sided with a masonry veneer for that “rustic” look.[12]
This publication provided fundamental guidance for those charged with design in the nation’s parks. The diverse ideas and principles that had been championed and practiced by the NPS and design professionals over many decades finally came together formally in this sourcebook. Park and Recreation Structures communicated to a broad audience the design context that national parks were following in their structural improvements and developments across the country.
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