NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Park Structures and Facilties

Though it is hoped that this volume will be widely used and that it will exert a beneficial influence on the design of park structures everywhere, its preparation was undertaken primarily because of a pressing need in connection with the Emergency Conservation Work now under way in National and State Parks throughout the country. Few architects had had any very extensive experience in meeting the special demands of park structure design as applied to natural areas; nor did any volume such as this one exist anywhere. For this reason, Emergency Conservation Work funds, sufficient to defray the cost of publication, were allotted for the purpose by Robert Fechner, Director of that popular and successful undertaking, whose sympathetic understanding of the major problems of park and recreation development has been an immensely helpful and encouraging factor of the work since its inception.

The task of collecting and sifting the mass of available material was undertaken by a committee from the administrative and professional staffs of the National Park Service. The membership was as follows:

ALBERT H. GOOD, Architect, State Park Division, Chairman and Editor; PAUL V. BROWN, Regional Officer, Fifth Region; HERBERT MAIER, Regional Officer, Seventh Region; NORMAN T. NEWTON, Landscape Architect, Second Region; OLIVER G. TAYLOR, Deputy Chief Engineer, Eastern Division, Branch of Engineering; THOMAS C. VINT, Chief Landscape Architect, Branch of Plans and Designs; DOROTHY WAUGH, Landscape Architect and Artist, Second Region.

It is felt that the National Park Service was especially fortunate in having available the services of Mr. Good as chairman and editor. To his already heavy duties as Architect for the State Park Division of the National Park Service, Branch of Planning, was added responsibility for actual performance of the bulk of this very large task. He it was who assembled the photographs and plans and submitted them to the scattered and busy members of the committee. He also wrote the general discussions and the comment on individual designs, which give the whole product its individuality and character. The intelligence and enthusiasm with which he carried on his work fully deserve this brief acknowledgment.

For the National Park Service, I also wish to express gratitude and appreciation to the many others who have in any way assisted in this undertaking, and especially to Herbert Evison, Supervisor of the State Park Division, whose helpful counsel, generously given, and based on wide experience in State Park work, has been of immense value.

CONRAD L. WIRTH, Assistant Director
National Park Service