Lookout Studio, known also as The Lookout, is a stone building located on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, within Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. It is part of the Grand Canyon Village Historic District, and is part of the Mary Jane Colter Buildings National Historic Landmark. It currently operates as a gift shop and observation station for visitors, with telescopes on its outdoor terrace. Lookout Studio was constructed by the Santa Fe Railway in 1914 and was established as a photography studio to compete with Kolb Studio. It is one of six buildings at the Grand Canyon that were designed by architect Mary Colter, along with Bright Angel Lodge, Hermit's Rest, Hopi House, Phantom Ranch, and Desert View Watchtower. Lookout Studio employs her signature rustic style of using jagged native rocks to imitate indigenous structures of the region and to blend in with the environment.
National Park Service rustic – sometimes colloquially called Parkitecture – is a style of architecture that developed in the early and middle 20th century in the United States National Park Service (NPS) through its efforts to create buildings that harmonized with the natural environment. Since its founding in 1916, the NPS sought to design and build visitor facilities without visually interrupting the natural or historic surroundings. The early results were characterized by intensive use of hand labor and a rejection of the regularity and symmetry of the industrial world, reflecting connections with the Arts and Crafts movement and American Picturesque architecture.
Herbert Maier was an American architect and public administrator, most notable as an architect for his work at Yosemite, Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Parks. Maier, as a consultant to the National Park Service, designed four trailside museums in Yellowstone, three of which survive as National Historic Landmarks. Maier played a significant role in the Park Service's use of the National Park Service Rustic style of architecture in western national parks.
The Grand Canyon Lodge is a hotel and cabins complex at Bright Angel Point on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. It was designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood, who designed a number of other hotels in national parks for the Utah Parks Company and other concessioners. Built in 1927–28, the Grand Canyon Lodge resort complex consists of the Main Lodge building, 23 deluxe cabins, and 91 standard cabins, some of which were moved to the north rim campground in 1940. All guests are housed in cabins detached from the main lodge, which serves as a dining, concessions and service facility. Constructed of native Kaibab limestone and timber, the complex was designed to harmonize with its rocky and forested setting. The Grand Canyon Lodge complex is notable for its setting and rustic design, as well as its status as the only complete surviving lodge and cabin complex in the national parks.
Grand Canyon Village Historic District comprises the historic center of Grand Canyon Village, on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon in Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. The district includes numerous landmark park structures, many of which are National Historic Landmarks themselves, or are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The town design as a whole is also significant for its attention to integration with the Grand Canyon landscape, its incorporation of National Park Service Rustic design elements, and for the idiosyncratic design of park concessioner structures such as the El Tovar Hotel.
The Watchman Lookout Station No. 168 is one of two fire lookout towers in Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon. For many years, National Park Service personnel used the lookout to watch for wildfires during the summer months. It is also a common hiking destination because of its views of Crater Lake and the surrounding area. The building is unusual because it serves the dual purpose of fire lookout and museum. The Watchman Lookout Station is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Comfort Station No. 72 is a historic visitor services building in Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon, United States. It was built in 1930 to provide a public toilet and shower facilities for park visitors. It was constructed in the National Park Service Rustic style of architecture, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
The Old Headquarters Area at Devils Tower National Monument includes three structures and their surroundings, including the old headquarters building, the custodian's house, and the fire hose house. The buildings are all designed in the National Park Service Rustic style.
The Tuolumne Meadows Ranger Station and Comfort Stations are examples of National Park Service Rustic design in Yosemite National Park. They are within the Tuolumne Meadows Historic District at Tuolumne Meadows. The ranger station was built in 1924 using peeled log construction. The ranger station doubled as the park entrance station for the Tioga Road. Its function was partly superseded by a newer structure in 1936, using larger quantities of stonework.
The Glacier Point Trailside Museum was one of the first projects in Yosemite National Park by Herbert Maier in what would become the National Park Service Rustic style. Located at Glacier Point, it was funded by Laura Spelman Rockefeller's estate as a project for the Yosemite Museum. It was the first "trailside museum" in the National Park system and was a prototype for enhanced visitor interpretation services in the parks.
The Cabin Creek Ranger Residence and Dormitory, also known as the Cabin Creek Ranger Station, were built in 1934 and 1935 in Sequoia National Park by the Civilian Conservation Corps. The three-room wood-frame residence and the two-room dormitory are examples of the National Park Service Rustic style.
The Merced Grove Ranger Station in Yosemite National Park was designed by the National Park Service and completed in 1935. An example of the National Park Service Rustic style, it features log construction. The station is near the Merced Grove of giant sequoias, in the Crane Flat region of the park.
The Shadow Mountain Lookout, also known as the Shadow Mountain Patrol Cabin, was built in Rocky Mountain National Park in 1932, to the design of the National Park Service San Francisco Landscape Architecture Division. It was regarded as one of the best National Park Service Rustic buildings in the national park system. It is now the only fire lookout surviving in Rocky Mountain National Park. Three other lookouts, now gone, were located at Twin Sisters Peak, the north fork of the Thompson River and near Long's Peak. The lookout was built by Civilian Conservation Corps labor.
The Henness Ridge Fire Lookout in Yosemite National Park was built in 1934 by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) which was a public work relief program for unemployed men age 18-24. The CCC provided unskilled manual labor related to the conservation and development of natural resources in rural areas of the United States.
The Gobbler's Knob Fire Lookout is a fire lookout tower in the extreme western region of Mount Rainier National Park at an elevation of 5,485 feet (1,672 m). One of four fire lookouts remaining in the park, the lookout is used for visitor services during summer weekends. The building is about 14 feet (4.3 m) by 14 feet (4.3 m), and was designed by the National Park Service Branch of Plans and designs under the supervision of Acting Chief Architect Edwin A. Nickel. It was built in 1933. The two-story structure features a balconied lookout on the second level, with storage on the ground level. Cables secured to deadmen keep the lookout from blowing over. The lookout was extensively damaged in a 2006 storm, along with Mount Fremont Fire Lookout. They've since been repaired.
The historical buildings and structures of Grand Teton National Park include a variety of buildings and built remains that pre-date the establishment of Grand Teton National Park, together with facilities built by the National Park Service to serve park visitors. Many of these places and structures have been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The pre-Park Service structures include homestead cabins from the earliest settlement of Jackson Hole, working ranches that once covered the valley floor, and dude ranches or guest ranches that catered to the tourist trade that grew up in the 1920s and 1930s, before the park was expanded to encompass nearly all of Jackson Hole. Many of these were incorporated into the park to serve as Park Service personnel housing, or were razed to restore the landscape to a natural appearance. Others continued to function as inholdings under a life estate in which their former owners could continue to use and occupy the property until their death. Other buildings, built in the mountains after the initial establishment of the park in 1929, or in the valley after the park was expanded in 1950, were built by the Park Service to serve park visitors, frequently employing the National Park Service Rustic style of design.
The Yosemite Village Historic District encompasses the primary built-up section of the Yosemite Valley as it was developed by the National Park Service for Yosemite National Park. The district includes visitor services areas, park personnel residences and administrative facilities. It is located to the north of the Merced River. The district includes the National Historic Landmark Rangers' Club.
Daniel Ray Hull (1890–1964), sometimes stated Daniel P. Hull, was an American landscape architect who was responsible for much of the early planning of the built environment the national parks of the United States during the 1920s. Hull planned town sites, designed landscapes, and designed individual buildings for the Park Service, in private practice, and later for the California State Parks. A number of his works are listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
Architects of the National Park Service are the architects and landscape architects who were employed by the National Park Service (NPS) starting in 1918 to design buildings, structures, roads, trails and other features in the United States National Parks. Many of their works are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and a number have also been designated as National Historic Landmarks.
John Bernard Wosky was an American architect and landscape architect and park superintendent. He worked for the National Park Service from the 1920s through the 1950s and designed a number of works that have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. He was assigned to Yosemite National Park from 1928 to 1952, initially as the parks's resident architect, and later as its assistant superintendent. He later served as the superintendent at Crater Lake National Park and Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.
