This outline of the factors which make for the desirable and appropriately rugged, handcrafted character of park structures would be woefully incomplete if consideration of roof texture were left unconsidered The heavy walls of rock and timber which are urged as fitting to a natural environment are assuredly created in vain unless crowned with roofs having related character. Surmounted with roofs trivial in aspect and thin in fact, the heavy walls appear robbed of justification. Verge members in gables should tend to be oversized, eave lines to be thick, and the roofing material to appear correspondingly heavy and durable. Where wood shingles or shakes are used on a roof, these should be fully an inch in thickness if possible. and the doubling of every fifth course or so, unless the building is quite small, will bring the roof texture into more appropriate scale with the structure itself and with the other materials that compose it. The primitive character we seek to create is furthered tremendously if we shun straight rigid eave and course lines in favor of properly irregular, wavering, “freehand” lines. The straight edge as a precision tool has little or no place in the park artisan’s equipment.
The structures necessary in a park are naturally less obtrusive if they are reasonably unified by a use of one style of architecture, limited construction methods, and not too great variety in materials. When a truly inappropriate style of architecture already exists in a park in which new work is contemplated, it is urged that the new buildings do not stubbornly carry on the old tradition. The best judgment available should be consulted to determine upon the style most appropriate to the area, and this then frankly and courageously launched. If the new style is the more appropriate one, it will prevail. In course of time the earlier, inappropriately styled buildings, will, in the very fitness of things, be eliminated.
Since structures exist in parks through sufferance, it follows that it is highly desirable in every area to keep down the number of them. A small area can be ruined by a clutter of minor buildings which, however necessary their purpose, seem to have been forced into every vista to inflict a consciousness of the hand of man. Two functions, or even more, where closely related at a given location, should be combined under one roof. This is not in defense of excessively large buildings. It is sound practice only within reasonable limits. It is based on a belief that a localizing of infection is preferable to an irritating rash of trivial structures all over an area. The grouping of two or more facilities under one roof tends to bring welcome variety to park structures generally. The limited range of expression of any simple, one-purpose building is vastly widened as other purposes are combined with it.
Confronted with the privilege of presenting examples of representative structures and facilities that have found place in our natural park areas, many decisions have been necessary in determination of a proper approach. Should such a compilation assume in the reader no fundamental knowledge of the subject, and become a park primer treating the subject “from the ground up” literally and figuratively? Should it seek to embrace in all detail every subject of possible interest to the park-minded, from the many linked but varied viewpoints of the architectural, landscape and engineering professions, assuming in the reader a consuming appetite for knowledge in bulk? Need it concern itself with formulae and tables, diagrams and charts, rules of thumb and rules of fact? Should it become a repository of material, both technical and aesthetic, elementary and advanced, and already available, albeit from scattered sources?
