Log, Stone and Sky: The Hidden Art of ‘Parkitecture’

This seven-story shingled log cabin was built over the winter of 1903 to 1904 by a 50-man crew of railroad trestle builders. They were brought in by the Northern Pacific Railroad company to further boost western tourism. The surface of the dramatically peaked gable roof is broken up by row upon row of pointed dormers, all of which mimic the surrounding mountainscape.

The soaring, open interior, with an irregular stone fireplace chimney and shafts of light filtering down to the lobby floor from the windows above, reflect the majestic scale of the park itself. Hotel guests can still relax on the inn’s observation deck to watch the geyser erupt or the evening stars emerge above the pines before retiring to simple, wood-paneled guest rooms. The lodge remains the poster child of the style that became parkitecture.

The site for Yosemite’s stunning 1926 Ahwahnee Hotel is a natural meadow surrounded by tall evergreen stands of cedar, pine and fir. As with other examples of parkitecture, the natural environment influenced the building’s grand design. Frequent local wildfires informed the choice to use stained concrete cast to look like wood for the hotel’s facade, which also features vertically stacked stone piers to echo the park's towering grey granite. The architecture manages to feel modest in comparison with its monumental surroundings.

The hotel’s interior design, while still rustic, includes hints of its contemporary Art Deco era (floor-to-ceiling windows, murals and expanses of painted walls), and stylized Native American motifs in its ornamental woodwork, fabrics and the lobby’s rubber-tiled pavement.

Originally called the Glacier Park Hotel, this log-framed lodge was built in 1913 by the Great Northern Railway. Located near the train station, the hotel was intended to serve as an entrance for tourists before they were ferried further into the park by horses and buses to the railway’s smaller lodges and tent camps.

The exterior features a series of massive red cedar pillars supporting the overhanging shingled roof. The building’s soaring Forest Lobby is eye-popping: unpeeled Douglas fir columns (more than 40 feet tall and some four feet in diameter!) line the central open space. A tourist brochure from the hotel’s early years raves that the lobby brings the outdoors inside, thanks to an "open campfire on the Lobby's floor; here tourists and dignified Blackfeet chiefs and weatherbeaten guides cluster of evenings about a great bed of stones on which sticks of fragrant pine crackle merrily." (Contrary to parkitecture style rules about using local materials where possible, the Douglas fir trees were brought to Montana by train from Oregon.)

When planning this iconic structure—a tower that seems to organically grow from the southern rim of the Grand Canyon—architect Mary Colter said, “First and most important was to design a building that would become part of its surroundings; one that would create no discordant note against the time-eroded walls of this promontory.”

Though the 1932 tower’s steel structure was built by Santa Fe Railroad bridge engineers, Colter selected natural materials for the rest of the tower—uncut local stones and previously used timber. In this and her other buildings in Grand Canyon National Park, including Hopi House and Hermit’s Rest, Colter applied the parkitecture ethos to the color and shapes of the Southwest. Steep shingled roofs had no place in Arizona’s climate or topography, so the architect allowed Native American designs and materials, like flat roofs and adobe, to permeate her plans.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)—Depression-era work crews—were responsible for many of the man-made structures in national parks. In the mid-1930s, the CCC was instructed by the NPS to remove park buildings that could not be refitted into the newly adopted Rustic style. One of the buildings demolished was Moraine Lodge in Rocky Mountain National Park.

The CCC converted the hotel’s assembly hall into a museum and then, taking advantage of a natural bowl on the site, recycled stone and wood salvaged from the lodge to construct an amphitheater. The result is a natural stage with curved rows of stone and wood plank seating. The amphitheater's scenic backdrop features Ponderosa pines and a picturesque view of Longs Peak mountain.

Designed as an interpretive center and fire lookout tower, the aptly named Watchman Observation Station was built from 1931 to 1933. Perched on a ledge high above Crater Lake, it replaced a cupola-style watchtower from 1917.

The parkitecture-compliant replacement, a pointy assemblage of volcanic rock and wood (that was hauled uphill to the treeless site), harmonizes perfectly with its setting. It also offers one of the finest views of the western portion of the park.