NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Park and Recreation Structures

A CHERISHED DICTUM of the many friends of the natural park concept through its formative years has been that structures must be regarded as intrusions in areas set aside to be conserved in their natural state. This unequivocal pronouncement indeed nourished the budding park idea, and has been a favorable and protective influence in its flowering. General acceptance of the principle has so held in check structural desecration of parks that few persons have been moved to brand the statement a half truth, standing very much in need of qualifying amendment to suit today's many-sided park concept. To do so will doubtless be received as a minority report, if not as shameless heresy; nevertheless, the case will be here argued.

Time was when only areas of superb scenery, outstanding scientific interest, or major historical importance held interest for the sponsors of natural parks. There was proper concentration on saving the outstanding natural wonders first, and it was probably along with the acquisition of the first superlative areas that structures in parks came to be frowned on as alien and intrusive. Recall that among the sites early dedicated to the idea were the Valley of Yosemite and the Canyons of the Yellowstone and the Colorado! Quick resentment of invasion of such scenic splendor is altogether understandable. Here man must first have felt that his best-intentioned structural efforts had reached an all-time high for incongruity, that structures, however well designed, do not contribute to the beauty, but only to the use, of a park of conspicuous natural distinction. When he concluded that only the most persistent demands for a facility should trap him into playing the jester, he established a principle that remains paramount today for such areas—to build only structures which are undeniably essential, and to know he is not equipped to embellish, but only to mar, Nature's better canvases. Now and forever, the degree of his success within such areas will be measurable by the yardstick of his self-restraint.

Outstanding, inspiring, breath-taking superlatives in Nature exist by reason of the fact that some comparatively few acres stand out in sharp contrast with hundreds of thousands of relatively unexciting others. Park areas of transcendent quality are often too remote from population centers to be within reach of any great number of citizens. Broad sections of the land, densely populated, are without scenically superb endowment by Nature.

Sensing these facts, the natural park movement could not long remain preoccupied with top-flight Nature alone. The natural park idea was destined for a truly liberal evolution, influenced by such weighing factors as distribution of population, development of the automobile, increase of leisure time, and tardy realization that important among conservational responsibilities of parks was the human crop.

The fact that superlative Nature was beyond gunshot of concentrations of five or ten million people happily did not result in these populations being denied the recreational and inspirational benefits that subsuperlative Nature can provide. It was wisely reasoned that there is more nourishment in half a loaf in the larder than a full loaf beyond the horizon—or no loaf at all. Many park preserves have come into being which cannot boast the highest peak or deepest canyon, bluest lake or tallest tree, but do succeed in delivering, f. o. b. metropolitan centers, hills and valleys to pass for superlative in contrast with tenement walls, and swimming, sun, and shade to seem heaven-sent to youth whose wading pools have been rain-flooded gutters of drab city streets.

Tracts, admittedly limited or even lacking in natural interest, but highly desirable by virtue of location, need, and every other influencing factor, bloom attractively on every side to the benefit of millions. It is inexact to term these, in the accepted denotation of the word, parks—they are reserves for recreation. More often than not their natural background is only that contrast-affording Nature which makes other areas superlative. Does such a background warrant the "no dogs allowed" attitude toward structures so fully justified where Nature plays the principal role? Does it not rather invite structures to trespass to a fulfilment of recreational potentialities and needs, and to bolster up a commonplace or ravaged Nature? It seems reasonable to assert that in just the degree natural beauty is lacking structures may legitimately seek to bring beauty to purpose.

Those who have been called on to plan the areas where structural trespass is not a justifiable taboo have sought to do so with a certain grace. We realize that the undertaking is legitimatized or not by harmony or the lack of it. We are learning that harmony is more likely to result from a use of native materials. We show signs of doubting the propriety of introducing boulders into settings where Nature failed to provide them, or of incorporating heavy alien timbers into structures in treeless areas. We sometimes even experience a faltering of faith in the precision materials produced by our machines, and so evidence an understanding of relative fitness.

As we have vaguely sensed these things, we incline to a humble respect for the past. We become aware of the unvoiced claims of those long-gone races and earlier generations that tracked the wilderness, plains, or desert before us. In fitting tribute we seek to grace our park structures by adaptation of their traditions and practices as we come to understand them.

Thus we are influenced by the early settlers, English and Dutch, along the Atlantic seaboard; something of Old France lingers along the trail of Pere Marquette and the fur traders. Reaching up from New Orleans, Florida, and Old Mexico, Spanish traditions and customs rightfully flourish. Over the covered wagon routes the ring of the pioneer's axe is echoed in the efforts of today. The habits and primitive ingenuity of the American Indian persist and find varied expression over wide areas. Interpreted with intelligence, these influences promise an eventual park and recreation architecture, which, outside certain sacrosanct areas, need not cringe before a blanket indictment for "unlawful entry."

CONFRONTED WITH THE PRIVILEGE of presenting representative structures and facilities that have found place in parks, from the truly natural park to the recreational reserve, many decisions have been necessary in determining a proper approach. Should such a compilation attribute to 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, assuming in the reader a consuming appetite for knowledge in bulk? Need it concern itself with formulae, diagrams, rules of thumb and rules of fact? Should it become a repository of material, technical and aesthetic, elementary and advanced, and already available from scattered sources?

It is the conclusion that the call is for none of these but only for a comprehensive presentation of park structures and facilities in which principles held in esteem by park planners, landscape designers, engineers, and architects have been happily joined in adequate provision for man's needs with a minimum sacrifice of the natural values present. By avoiding any tendency to be a primer, an encyclopedia, or a handbook of the subject, it is hoped to focus more directly on the current trend in park buildings. It is believed that by making the subjects herein widely available for comparative study, the influence engendered by each will merge into a forceful composite to the advancement of park technique.

The examples shown are considered appropriate to natural parks, as distinguished from naturalistic or formalized city parks. These latter are considered to be a field in themselves, very different in premise, and better treated independently of the natural park areas as exemplified by our national, many of our State, and some of our county and metropolitan parks. It has been elected to present examples of structures, regardless of location, if in their expression they promise to be quite at home in little-modified environment.

For more convenient reference it has seemed advisable to arrange items of closely related purpose into three groups representative of certain broad functions. Hence, Part I is titled Administration and Basic Service Facilities, and embraces structures identified with boundary, access and circulation, supervision and maintenance, and those basic services in park areas which can be termed the counterparts of public utilities in urban communities.

The scope of Part II Recreational and Cultural Facilities requires no detailed exposition. The structures treated therein are those in facilitation of picnicking, active recreation, and cultural pursuits representative of the day use of a park area. The title of Part III Overnight and Organized Camp Facilities is self-explanatory. Discussed and illustrated therein is the range of individual overnight accommodations and dependencies, from tent campsite to hotel, together with the full complement of structures that make up an organized camp. The latter will, of course, repeat some of the previously explored classifications but will focus on examples adapted physically to the specific requirements of group camping, and scaled economically to the social aspect of this field of public recreation.

THE SCOPE OF MATERIAL has suggested three varieties of presentation. There are minor facilities, developed to a pleasing expression within certain utilitarian or technical limitations, which might with propriety be duplicated in many localities. In such instances, it has been the endeavor to provide information in such detail that adaptation approaching duplication is possible. This is by no means so much an invitation to indiscriminate copying as a suggestion that little objects once well done are often a more satisfactory solution to a recurring problem than a new creation claiming the sole and debatable distinction of being different.

Another group embraces subjects eminently suited to particular locations, but promising little success with outright transplanting into another environment. Such subjects are shown in limited detail. They are included simply in the hope that the charm and fitness of the subjects in their specific settings and expressions may offer inspiration while flying a warning against too literal translation. It is intended to offer the spirit but not the letter of such examples. Only reliance on the best professional advice can reasonably insure against structures appropriate in one locality becoming caricatures elsewhere. Only consummate skill and rare good judgment in adaptation can avoid a half-caste development, the very counterfeit exactness of which is pathetic testimony of the bar sinister. The third presentation is of successful accomplishments of highly individual problems, the factors fixing which are unlikely ever to be approximated in another problem. These are included in recognition of worthy attainment, to inspire in those to whom the more complex park design problems may fall in the future a high purpose to approach them with equally refreshing individuality, ingenuity, and forthrightness. Plagiarism, subtle or obvious, in structures within this category is a crowning stupidity.

It is felt that inclusion of examples of extraordinarily complex structures would bring little to the practical usefulness of this collection. The more involved and extensive the structure, the more evident that it is the result of an altogether unique interplay of needs, topography, traditions, materials, and many other factors. Beyond the borders of utter simplicity lie innumerable possible patterns, complex in varying degree. Duplication of any one such pattern is without rhyme; approximation of it, without reason. Readers will note the absence of many well-known and admired large-scale buildings of incontestable park character. These are held to be sanctified in a sense by their very success, and are omitted to avoid possible inference that they are imitable material.

The placing of some of the combination structures herein presented, within the chapter classifications established, may stand in need of explanation and defense. Such combination buildings are so numerous that to create a separate classification for them would result in a loosely related group, bulking to an unreasonable relationship with other classifications. For this reason a so-called combination structure is allocated to the heading which seems best to define the apparently dominant use of the building.

IN THE SELECTION OF MATERIAL one issue, long an inviting subject for debate, arose again and again. This involves the use of materials in that wide ranging style in park structures which we loosely identify, and as loosely term, "rustic" or "pioneer."

One opinion holds that park buildings should not appropriate the semblance of primitive structures without appropriating as well all the primitive elements and structural methods of the prototypes. It insists, for instance, that there is no allowable compromise with true log construction; such must be rigidly adhered to in every detail if employed at all. Contrary opinion argues that there are not at hand today the timber resources of pioneer days, that to insist on the use of logs in today's park structures in the spendthrift fashion of our forefathers may be logic in the aesthetic abstract, but in practice wastes those resources the conservation of which largely motivates park expansion.

Taking into account the demands of present day economy and conservation principles, how far may departure from the forthright but prodigal construction of the pioneers properly be urged? What substitutes may be recommended as an acceptable wall surface material for park buildings? Is a proper direction pointed by the fact that the amount of timber stock required for one true log structure will provide material for several more or less adequate and pleasing structures to bloom or blight (the partisan reader may choose his own verb) in its place?

The author carries water on both shoulders. Where wood is the material indicated for use, some of the more important structures may well reproduce faithfully pioneer log construction to create, and so preserve for study, the fast disappearing construction methods of the frontier. On the other hand, minor and oft-repeated units, such as cabins, do well to utilize more economical, even if less picturesque and durable, materials and methods.

The purpose of this publication will be misconstrued if it is interpreted by readers as providing source material for park structures, denying need for competent professional assistance in the creation of park buildings that may follow. The intent is the very opposite. The most completely satisfying subjects included herein are so, not as a result of chance, but because training, imagination, effort, and skill are conjoined to create and fashion a pleasing structure or facility appropriate to a particular setting. Who then but those of professional training and experience are equipped to decide that a perfect structural interpretation for one setting will sanction adaptation to another, and in what detail or degree modification will make the most of the conditions presented by another environment? If an existing structure is so admired that it persuades duplication, careful analysis will inevitably demonstrate that admiration springs from a nice perfection of the subject within one circumstantial pattern. As that pattern changes so must the structure change. To venture in translation without benefit of technical idiom foredooms to mediocrity, if not to failure.

THE STRUCTURAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS presented herein mirror the skills and devotions of many men who have striven to translate into gratifying actuality the creative abilities of many others. It is ventured to hope that the discussions and comments also do not inaccurately mirror the thoughts and philosophies of friends and associates endowed with capacity for viewing clearly and pointing the way. From the following, among unnamed others, the author exposes himself to the jibes "parrot" or "pirate" and if deserving of neither, he is shamed into a realization that he has proved inept.

Bows to Herbert Maier, when the park museum concept and many principles basic to a fitting park architecture enunciated by him are appropriated herein to Julian H. Salomon, when a theory and standards for organized camping are outlined to Edward B. Ballard, when winter sports activities and structures are discussed. Acknowledgments to John D. Coffman and his associates for material in exposition of fire lookout structures, to Thos. C. Vint and his associates for collaboration in pioneering trailer campsite lay-outs. Tribute to Colonel Richard Lieber, Conrad L. Wirth, and Herbert Evison when there is digression into phases of park and recreation philosophy which they have expounded or sponsored

Readers will underwrite the author's deep indebtedness to Mr. Evison, Mentor Extraordinary, for a generous counsel that ranged from the grim business of reading much of this material in manuscript to a helpful and frequent checking and re-charting of wavering course. The drawings so ornamental to these pages reflect the talents of a little band of master draftsmen, to whom individually the author acknowledges a very great debt.

A.H.G.