During my summer of 2019 travels I managed to visit six national parks in Utah and Arizona. Quite some time ago on this blog I discussed “National Parkitecture” which is a term design people throw around sometimes when looking at the themed stylings of the National Parks lodges throughout the Western United States. Parkitecture is sort of a Venn diagram overlap of branding (logos, typography, wayfinding), theming (interiors, furniture and fixtures, fabric), and the design of the structures themselves.

There wasn’t as much Parkitecture this time out, but I want to note a few things.

Bryce Canyon National Park

The first stop south from Provo for myself and fellow road tripper David Janssen, Jr. was Bryce Canyon. This magical landscape has been on my bucket list for longer than I can remember. I’d been to Utah before but was never able to make it happen. I’ll be elaborating in a future post as to what exactly the allure of Bryce is for me, but it suffices to say I was really looking forward to checking out the park’s trails.

For each of these parks I’m providing a satellite image, because often the terrain is not what it appears to be from various vantage points on the ground. Here you can see the true vastness of Bryce. We had an amazing all-day hike throughout, covering a nearly 2,000 foot change in elevation.

Before hitting the trails, however, I wanted to see if there was any Parkitecture to be found. The Lodge at Bryce Canyon is done in a style which I’ve seen before at other parks, a sort of glorified “log cabin” approach which is a branch of the National Park Service rustic style.

Here the scale is smaller and it’s far less elaborate. The lodge was designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood and constructed 1924–25. Underwood did a ton of architectural work for the National Park Service, yet of his structures at Bryce, Zion, and the Grand Canyon, this is only one which remains complete.

The roofs are known for the shingles, which Underwood designed to warble. The effect is a kind of optical illusion of motion or distortion. Even at a distance it’s noticeable.

I didn’t have much time to explore the lodge, and I guess the grounds are more interesting on the other side, opposite from the direction I approached.

There are great details however, like these wrought iron sconces. The lighting might be contemporary LED, but the effect is well-themed.

What the Bryce park grounds definitely had in abundance was the routed wood lettering that has become nearly synonymous with the National Park Service in the public’s eye.

Such signs were all over the more than 12 miles of trails which we traversed that day. Some examples were of a quite older vintage, which I appreciated.

Zion National Park

The next day we headed a bit further south to Zion, which I had visited years back. Although far from my favorite National Park, it’s a beautiful site which is perhaps too popular for its own good—something like 2.5 million visitors a year.

The grounds are essentially a long winding riverbed canyon leading up into a backcountry area which far fewer tourists take the time and energy to explore. You need a permit, and you need to make it to your campsite on foot, traversing the waters of the river more than once.

I found the graphic identity of Zion to be unexpectedly distinct. The park doesn’t appear to truck with most of the NPS standards for lettering and signage.

A new state-of-the-art visitor center complex opened in 2000. Much was made of its energy efficiency and sustainability after a decade of over-taxing the park with increasing visitorship.

I really liked the design which is an amalgam of clean mid-century modernist lines and an overall materiality and attention to detail rooted in the region’s history. I’ll call it “nearly thematic” design.

The Floor of the Valley Road (Zion Canyon Scenic Drive) runs 6.5 miles up the canyon of the North Fork of the Virgin River through Zion. Since 2000 when new visitor center and transportation complex were introduced, the road has been closed to private vehicle traffic during the peak tourist season (April–October). You instead ride on a line of shuttle buses.

I’m not quite sure what this 1980s sass is all about. It’s only on the busses. “Zion - The Daytime Soap.”

Each bus stop carries the same sort of “nearly” thematic design, well-integrated with the landscape utilizing appropriate materials. Pretty charming, actually.

Restrooms along the route and at trailheads are all rendered in a more “rustic cabin” style which eschews the modernism found on the park’s other structures.

Zion Lodge was designed by the aforementioned Gilbert Stanley Underwood and constructed in the mid-1920s during a National Parks building boom which included his work at Bryce and the Grand Canyon.

A fire ravaged the original lodge in 1966 and it was hastily rebuilt in something like one hundred days with little regard for Underwood’s original design aesthetic.

Fortunately this was rectified in the early 1990s with an extensive restoration reintroducing Underwood’s approach. Something still felt a bit off to me though, especially in the interiors. It was a bit too clean, a bit too corporate. Like an upscale restaurant chain trying to go for “Rustic Old West.”

The new structures which were added in the 1990s were designed in the same style as the original lodge, providing overall unity to the site. In this I think they did far better with the exteriors.

Grand Canyon National Park

I’d been to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon before. Still haven’t made it around to the North Rim; that will have to be another time. Before I had visited in the late springtime. It was different visiting in the summer for sure—lots more people. Tons of overseas tour groups, mostly from China.

The South Rim area is essentially a small village of facilities which includes various lodging options and a transportation hub linking to a railroad line.

After walking the long trail that winds along the South Rim of the canyon, we came to the village. The first structure I spotted was this Native American-looking two-story pueblo kind of thing.

As I learned later, Hopi House was built in 1905 as, well, a gift shop of sorts for tourists. And it was designed by a white architect, Mary Colter. This is pre-thematic design, in that it predates cinema, but is still a hyperbolic and fanciful reinterpretation of historical forms and “otherness.” In fact, Hopi House is very much like a cultural display at the World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893.

The concessionaires occupying the building were Native American, offering Navajo (here spelled as the anglicized “Navaho”) rugs and various handmade crafts. As I explored the interior retail spaces I wondered what the Native peoples working here thought of Mary Colter’s invention. Does the lack of design authenticity matter? Perhaps it has been embraced, just like the Chinatowns of San Francisco and Los Angeles which were actually the work of white Hollywood art directors.

Just across the way from Hopi House is the historic El Tovar Hotel. This massive structure also dates to 1904-05 and was designed by Charles Frederick Whittlesey. Whittlesey began his career as a draftsman for the famed Louis Sullivan before being hired in his early thirties as Chief Architect for the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway. This position lead to a number of notable projects throughout the Southwest, the El Tovar among them.

El Tovar is an early example of the aforementioned National Park Service rustic “Parkitecture.” Like most National Park lodges, the hotel has undergone numerous additions and renovations over the years.

This entrance sign uses a typeface here resembling Rubens which was first cut in wood by John F. Cumming in Boston sometime between 1881 and 1884. However the face did not become widely available nor popular until it was rendered in phototype in the 1960s. So my guess is this sign dates to the 60s or 70s. To my eye it looks like a Southern California Mexican restaurant.

The Parkitecture here is one of the earliest iterations. There is a strange mix at work: locally sourced rockwork, which speaks to the Arizona setting, yet wedded to a kind of log cabin interpretation.

Seeing the log cabin look in the Pacific Northwest or in Western National Parks like Glacier, Yellowstone, or Yosemite makes sense to me. Overlooking the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, it’s not unattractive per say, but it stands out. I’m not sure what to make of it. It’s “rustic” but not really the right kind.

Other parts of El Tovar eschew the log cabin feel. This is the opposite façade (reverse of the entrance side) which features paneled walls and shingled roofs. There is also more natural stonework.

All of this appears to be true to the original design and is not the result of a series of renovations. El Tovar is an eclectic blend of a rustic Western-Swiss theme, the California Mission style, the American Arts and Crafts Movement, and elements of various Southwestern Native American motifs.

Adjacent to the El Tovar and just below it in a valley is a railroad station which is still serviced by a vintage line which arrives from Williams, Arizona. Like other smaller amenities structures around El Tovar, it’s done in a straight-up rustic log cabin style.

Hopi House is far from Mary Colter’s only contribution to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. In fact, she designed four buildings at this site as chief architect and decorator for the Fred Harvey Company which were, as a group, declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987.

Perhaps her most famous of these is the Desert View Watchtower (1932). Like Hopi House, Colter sought to design a structure for tourist purposes which leans into Native American history, here specifically the watchtowers of the Ancestral Puebloans. Colter’s version, however, is far larger. Again, I have to wonder what contemporary Native Americans from the region think about this appropriated pre-thematic design.

One last touch I caught as we left the park through the east entrance. Although superficially resembling the entrance signage found at many National Parks, this one is constructed of local stone. And there is a deliberate nod to Colter’s Watchtower on the right side, complete with windows. Nice.

Monument Valley Tribal Park

Like Bryce Canyon, Monument Valley has been on my bucket list for years and years. I drove past the park on a roadtrip many years back but did not have time to stop and explore. Like Bryce, my interest in visiting was personal (read: cinematic) and I’ll go into detail on that in a future post.

Monument Valley (in the Navajo language this is Tsé Biiʼ Ndzisgaii meaning “Valley of the Rocks”) straddles the Arizona–Utah state line and is completely within the territory of the Navajo Nation Reservation. As such it’s not a National Park, but rather a Native American equivalent, the Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park.

As I’ve mentioned before, I like to visit sites without much preparatory research so that my observations remain fresh. I expected at least some thematic design in the form of rustic Parkitecture, but found none here. The primary visitor center is rendered in a modernist style with materials that are appropriate to the setting. Not terribly exciting for my purposes.

The adjacent View Hotel was equally nondescript. In fact, the garish signage plastered all over it made the building rather obnoxious. It’s a shame that the Tribal Park has not chosen to capitalize on the rich design heritage of the Navajo and other Native American tribes of the region.

If they were to do so, they could eclipse the lovely, though obviously appropriated, forms of Mary Colter I saw at the Grand Canyon. By hiring Native American architects to interpret historical forms and construct them on tribal land at Monument Valley, the tribe could do something very special. Instead I found something that looks like a villain’s lair in a James Bond film. It’s a shame and such a lost opportunity. Thoughtful design doesn’t have to cost more than generic projects.

Arches National Park

Arches, once again, has been on my bucket list since childhood. Luckily I have a friend who lives in Moab, Utah so it was easy to set aside a few days and spend one in the park. My buddy is a LEGO freak who actually photographs his custom builds in and around Moab and produces a calendar every year featuring the quite charming images.

I had an incredible day exploring Arches, and again, I had personal (read: movies!) reasons for doing so which I will elaborate on later. As far as thematic design, Arches was (once again) kind of a bust.

The entrance sign was a more unique take on the NPS conventions, built of local materials.

I did find a bit of theming at the visitor center. The water service stations were fashioned to look like they were natural rock features. Kind of neat, and a small detail that—given the more modern design of the rest of the center—was completely unexpected.

Canyonlands National Park

I only had time for a brief stop at Canyonlands on my drive out of the Moab area. The park is just north of town and is insanely large. It would take weeks to explore it all (and an all-wheel drive vehicle, which I didn’t have). I had to settle for a short hike and table any more extensive adventures for another trip.

This National Park is of the rougher, backcountry variety. As such, there are no destination resorts and few facilities. Although I had a nice hike and saw some cool arch structures and lively vistas, there was no Parkitecture to be found at all.

I did appreciate the extremely simple, old school approach to the entrance signage. Routed in wood and sporting the same typography that you can find throughout the National Parks System. Course and unrefined, just like Canyonlands itself.

Well that’s it for the National Parks of the Southwest which I toured in the summer of 2019. Next up I’ll being looking at the Mythic West of Hollywood and commenting on my own interest in some of these park locales and their connection to theme parks, movies, and television.