NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Park and Recreation Structures

IF IN THE ARRANGING OF MATERIAL of this collection, a certain latitude, not to say license, could not be assumed to be granted the compiler by the readers, this heading would have little reason for being. For while if asked to name a half dozen structures justified by need within parks, a reader will probably name an administration building as one of them, he might be somewhat in a fog if asked to describe just what, specifically, constitutes one. The embarrassing question will not be pressed upon the reader. Rather will the difficult duty of seeking the answer be here assumed and herein attempted without, however, any certain expectancy of pulling a rabbit from an empty hat. In theory the administration building is headquarters for directing effort and business management of the park area. Actually it may be a vest pocket, a desk, a room supplemented with typewriter, adding machine, safe, or some multiplication of these accessories. Frequently we find gate lodges, custodians' dwellings, community buildings, recreation pavilions, dining concessions, and numerous combinations of several functions, all termed administration buildings.

Few examples of administration buildings are known to exist as entities separate from other functions, except in national parks of vast extent. In these the need for space for the superintendent and a considerable staff engaged in the varied operations of dealing with the public and the park operator or concessionaire, keeping accounts, directing maintenance, planning the further development of the area, etc., is very considerable, and it results in a building of some size and of single purpose. In smaller national parks and monuments the combining of administration point and museum is often advantageous for the concentration of required supervisory effort that results.

It is probably usual in State parks to conduct on-the-area administration with less formality from an office attached to the custodian's or caretaker's dwelling. Sometimes this control point is in connection with a lodge or other dominant structure in the nature of a community building; again, under conditions requiring limited contact with the public and almost constant supervision of development and maintenance, the administration headquarters may be more conveniently placed with the service group. An analysis of most combined use buildings and of the space devoted to this sometimes intangible business of administration will often demonstrate that the designation of the building as the administration building is something of a courtesy title, if not actually a misnomer.

This widespread paradox exists very naturally and with some logic. It is probably proper that the point of control, the symbol of supervisory authority, should have importance, even dominance, among park buildings. It is quite pardonable that the limited space demand of administrative function should augment itself by the borrowed bulk of less significant space requirements and give name to the resulting combination structure. The tail is allowed to wag the dog with more than usual justification.

Structures dignified by the designation "administration building" sometimes tend to a prominence of location and an ostentatious treatment that arrogantly imply special prerogative to compete with Nature as the "feature" of the natural park. Such boorish behavior can no more be condoned in Park Building No. 1 than in lesser park structures.

Illustrated hereinafter are numerous buildings, one function of which is administration. Some include closely related functions, others combine facilities unrelated or only slightly related to the business of administration. Insofar as these avoid the blight of several scattered structures to result in a single structure free of pompous pretensions, the multi-purpose building masquerading as administration building is not unreasonable. Rather does it seem to be a solution worthy of encouragement.

• Plate I D—1 — Plate I D—15