Modernism & the National Parks
Hagen’s research on mid-century architecture in Glacier National Park documents how broader developments in postwar American culture reshaped the Park Service and the built environment of America’s National Parks, as well as how architecture shaped that culture in turn. After the Second World War, in response to rising park visitation, the Park Service developed a massive infrastructure program, dubbed Mission 66, that reflected the period’s widespread embrace of Modernism. Mission 66, and the subsequent Parkscape program, served as “an integral part of a broader effort at the Park Service to transform the agency, and the national park system, to meet the exigencies of postwar America.” Together the two building programs constituted the largest planning, design, and construction campaign in Park Service history. They transformed the National Parks into the places we know today.
At Glacier, as in other parks, that transformation “reflect[ed] several key elements of Mission 66 design criteria.” Indeed, as the Park Service embraced Modernism and the Modernist style, its planners, architects and designers developed their own variant, Park Service Modern. In the course of the Mission 66 and Parkscape building programs, Park Service Modern “became as influential and significant in the history of American national and state park management as the Park Service Rustic style had been." First and foremost, Mission 66 intended to bring Modern architecture into parks in the form of a primary building at a main entrance. Specifically these Modern Mission 66 sites were to centralize park services in a new type of property, a single multi-purpose entrance complex, comprising buildings that were constructed of “natural materials that reflect the adjacent landscape and park culture” and featured “window walls to provide views of the natural features” outside. Entry complexes would be centered around a visitor center that featured a distinctive open floor plan designed to facilitate visitor flow, Visitor centers like Glacier’s St. Mary’s were simultaneously the most significant architectural “expression of the planning and design practices developed by the Park Service during the Mission 66 era” and "the centerpiece of a new era in planning for visitor services in American national parks." They subsequently “became prototypes for a new approach to park planning all over the world.”
Portions of this research have served as the basis for the Historic American Building Survey documentation of Glacier's St. Mary Visitor Center in the repositories of the National Park Service (online access to that documentation is forthcoming from the NPS).
In the course of her research on Glacier, Hagen drew heavily on Sarah Allaback's Mission 66 Visitor Centers: The History of a Building Type. She also used Rodd Wheaton's National Register of Historic Places Nomination for Saint Mary Visitor Center. Quotes in the above research summary come from these two sources.
At Glacier, as in other parks, that transformation “reflect[ed] several key elements of Mission 66 design criteria.” Indeed, as the Park Service embraced Modernism and the Modernist style, its planners, architects and designers developed their own variant, Park Service Modern. In the course of the Mission 66 and Parkscape building programs, Park Service Modern “became as influential and significant in the history of American national and state park management as the Park Service Rustic style had been." First and foremost, Mission 66 intended to bring Modern architecture into parks in the form of a primary building at a main entrance. Specifically these Modern Mission 66 sites were to centralize park services in a new type of property, a single multi-purpose entrance complex, comprising buildings that were constructed of “natural materials that reflect the adjacent landscape and park culture” and featured “window walls to provide views of the natural features” outside. Entry complexes would be centered around a visitor center that featured a distinctive open floor plan designed to facilitate visitor flow, Visitor centers like Glacier’s St. Mary’s were simultaneously the most significant architectural “expression of the planning and design practices developed by the Park Service during the Mission 66 era” and "the centerpiece of a new era in planning for visitor services in American national parks." They subsequently “became prototypes for a new approach to park planning all over the world.”
Portions of this research have served as the basis for the Historic American Building Survey documentation of Glacier's St. Mary Visitor Center in the repositories of the National Park Service (online access to that documentation is forthcoming from the NPS).
In the course of her research on Glacier, Hagen drew heavily on Sarah Allaback's Mission 66 Visitor Centers: The History of a Building Type. She also used Rodd Wheaton's National Register of Historic Places Nomination for Saint Mary Visitor Center. Quotes in the above research summary come from these two sources.