Rustic architecture

Rustic architecture is a building style for rural buildings in the United States and Canada. Characteristic is the use of local and natural building materials to achieve harmony with the landscape.  A log cabin is a typical rustic structure. In addition to private buildings, many buildings of government agencies, such as the National Park Service , the Civilian Conservation Corps and the WPA , have been built in a rustic style in the United States.

The rustic style was influenced by the American version of the arts and craft movement and was especially popular in the first half of the twentieth century.

Building styles

Adirondack architecture

Adirondack architecture is the name for the architectural style of the Great Camps in the Adirondack Mountains in the north of New York State , which were built on behalf of wealthy Americans since the 1870s. Characteristic is the use of indigenous building materials, the primitive, rustic appearance and the location in wooded landscapes. The Adirondack style started to influence the architects of the national parks around the turn of the century . In the early twentieth century they developed their own form of rustic architecture, nicknamed National Park Service Rustic .

National parks

The rustic architecture of the National Park Service ( National Park Service Rustic ) is a building style for all kinds of buildings in America's national parks . Many of the visitor centers , hotels, lodges and other constructions in the national parks of the first half of the twentieth century have been built specifically for the National Park Service in a rustic building style. The rustic style was also used for roads and bridges .  Most buildings have now been placed on the National Register of Historic Places .

In the rustic architecture, constructions are sought that are in harmony with their natural surroundings. Often an indigenous style was sought. These are usually very labor-intensive buildings that consciously avoid classicist concepts such as symmetry and regularity. Important building materials are indigenous woods, preferably in the form of rough beams, and natural stone .

Major architects and designers of the Rustic National Park Service were Mary Jane Colter , Daniel Ray Hull , Herbert Maier , Robert Reamer , Merel Sager, Gilbert Stanley Underwood and Thomas Chalmers Vint . The term Parkitecture  is a relatively recent nickname for the popular rustic architecture of national parks.

History

The first national parks came into being in response to the romance of the nineteenth century, in which the concept of 'wilderness' acquired a new meaning in the United States. The concept evolved over the course of that century from something that was feared and had to be conquered into a good that had to be kept, protected and nurtured. This transition is noticeable in the work of artists such as John James Audubon , James Fenimore Cooper , Thomas Cole , George Catlin and others. Among other things, by the art in which the new wilderness philosophy was shown, more and more Americans started to feel something for the idea of ​​the national parks. For the first time, natural areas were delimited, protected and preserved on federal land, starting with Yosemite and Yellowstone .

The first parks proved to be very difficult to drive properly. As a result of political scandals and poaching , the American army was called in 1883 to protect Yellowstone. The army remained there as an administrative force until 1916. In the same period the army was invoked at various other places to protect parks and forests. The American army was forced to build some basic facilities at all those places, Fort Yellowstone of which is probably the most important and best-known example. The army buildings were built according to the standards of the American army and since the army had no business with the landscape, that architecture does not show any specific affinity with local nature. Where the Ministry of the Interior retained the administrative responsibility for the parks, primitive government facilities were chosen, such as simple barns, log cabins or tent structures. The ministry was not charged with housing and transport of visitors, but outsourced those responsibilities to concession holders . They too initially chose primitive and often temporary structures. Only after the completion of the northern transcontinental railways began to build more sophisticated hotels. The Classicist Lake Hotel in Yellowstone, built by the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1890, was one of the first large structures in the national parks.

When the railway companies started the first major projects in the parks, they looked for a building style that was adapted to the natural environment. In that period, the landscape architecture began to exert a large influence on architectural theory. In 1842, the American landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing had expressed his ideas about "picturesque" landscapes and the importance of nature in architecture and landscape architecture in the book Cottage Residences . In the following decades, cooperation and synergy between architecture and landscape architecture increased further. A rustic architecture was created in which landscape and building were in harmony. The first large-scale and deliberately rustic buildings appeared in the Adirondack Mountains in the north of the state of New York in the 1870s. This Adirondack architecture used mainly natural materials such as natural stone, tree trunks and shingles and sought harmony with the surrounding forest landscapes. After 1900, this style of architecture began to influence the architecture of the national parks.

In the 1920s , the national parks of the USA got a better organization. The National Park Service , founded in 1916 , developed an architectural policy for its parks during this period. Under the influence of Thomas Chalmers Vint and architect Herbert Maier , rustic architecture became the new standard for national parks. In the 1930s, the Service also managed various Civilian Conservation Corps projects in state parks , where rustic constructions were also chosen.

In the 1950s , the National Park Service opted for a different direction. With Mission 66 , a large-scale renewal program for national parks, modern and modernist architecture was chosen. After the Second World War it became clear that the construction of time- and labor-intensive lodges was not suitable for the increasing flow of visitors, who increasingly came by car. The Mission 66 plan by Vint and Maier meant a reversal of the architectural policy of the National Park Service.

Many of the modernist buildings are outdated or need renovation, half a century later. Moreover, many visitors regard modern architecture as disturbing in a natural landscape. For several recent building projects, such as the new Henry M. Jackson Visitor Center at Mount Rainier National Park , a more traditional design has been chosen that fits in with the philosophy of rustic architecture.

WPA

The Works Projects Administration (WPA), the largest government agency of the New Deal of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt , is also responsible for the construction of a number of rustic buildings. The style is similar to that of the National Park Service. The main difference is that the harmony between building and landscape is less strong in the WPA building style. That difference can be explained by the often flatter landscapes, without large rocks and with fewer trees, where the WPA was built. Although the aim was to use horizontal lines, flat roofs and local materials, the buildings were never as well integrated into the landscape as those of the national parks.

Example

National Park Service Rustic style which applies to U.S. National Park Service designed structures.

WPA Rustic architecture of the U.S. Works Project Administration

Great Depression era park projects by the U.S. Civilian Conservation Corps and other federal entities.

Adirondack Architecture and the Great Camps

Log cabins

Source From Wikipedia