National Park Service rustic

National Park Service rustic, also colloquially known as Parkitecture, is a style of architecture that arose in the United States National Park System to create buildings that harmonized with their natural environment. Since its founding, the National Park Service consistently has sought to provide visitor facilities without visually interrupting the natural or historic scene. The structures are characterized by intensive use of hand labor and rejection of the regularity and symmetry of the industrial world, reflecting its connections with the Arts and Crafts movement. Architects, landscape architects and engineers combined native wood and stone with convincingly native styles to create visually appealing structures that seemed to fit naturally within the majestic landscapes. Examples of the style can be found in numerous types of National Park structures, including entrance gateways, park roads and bridges, visitor centers, trail shelters, hotels and lodges, and even maintenance and support facilities. Many of these buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Development 1872–1916

The first national parks were a response to the romanticism that restructured the American concept of wilderness in the nineteenth century. As seen in the artistry of John James Audubon, James Fenimore Cooper, Thomas Cole, George Catlin, William Cullen Bryant and others, the idea of wilderness developed during the course of the nineteenth century from an entity to be...
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