View of the Desert View Watchtower in Grand Canyon National Park. Image courtesy of Page & Turnbull.

Last month, the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to pass an amended version of the Great American Outdoors Act (S.3422), legislation originally introduced in the House of Representatives under a different name by the recently departed, legendary Congressman John Lewis. The bill — which passed in the House last and will now head to the desk of the president for his signature into law — would secure $900 million annually in permanent, dedicated funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, as well as money to tackle the $12 billion backlog of deferred maintenance for our National Parks, National Forests and other public lands. According to advocacy group Preservation Action, about 43% of the backlog includes valuable historic structures, too.

As citizens and as architects active in conserving cultural landscapes and historic buildings within National Parks, we at Page & Turnbull have voiced our strong and unequivocal support for immediate passage and enactment of this critical legislation. Not only does it help secure the legacy of these national treasures, it also protects public access to these places at a time when it’s needed more than ever.

Today, as our nation faces a once-in-a-century pandemic coupled with civil unrest over issues of racial and social injustice, this legislation must be viewed as more urgent and more necessary than ever before. Starved of funding for decades, many of the park service’s natural and built resources stand in imminent danger of being lost to future generations. In addition to deferred maintenance, we are witnessing rapidly changing conditions that further negatively impacting these sites.

In addition to deferred maintenance, we are witnessing rapidly changing conditions that further negatively impacting these sites.

“Sea level rise, coastal erosion, increased flooding, heavy rains and more frequent large wildfires are damaging archaeological resources, historic buildings, and cultural landscapes across the nation,” the Union of Concerned Scientists warned in a seminal report a few years ago. What’s more, the popularity of the National Parks System is trending upward, especially among foreign visitors. This is a mixed blessing: Even as landscapes, monuments, and structures become more economically vital assets, they also become more exposed to increased use and wear, contributing to soil erosion as well as greater potential for failures of antiquated systems, safety features, and protocols desperate for upgrades. 

This rise in the popularity of public parks and lands has intensified in the last few months, as the unresolved pandemic crisis contributes to a national thirst for outdoor experiences. Looking for alternatives to restaurants, the movies, and the mall, people seek to enjoy public spaces and free or low-cost cultural experiences. Facing limited travel options, U.S. residents naturally gravitate to parks as an amazing opportunity for escape, as well as for hands-on education and life experiences. With its ramifications for both the economy and our national wellbeing, COVID-19 has made legislation of this kind more urgent than ever.

Looking for alternatives to restaurants, the movies, and the mall, people seek to enjoy public spaces and free or low-cost cultural experiences. Facing limited travel options, U.S. residents naturally gravitate to parks as an amazing opportunity for escape, as well as for hands-on education and life experiences. 

There are unique, irreplaceable historic structures and monuments on some of these lands—an area of special interest to our firm and its mission—that suffer from the ongoing maintenance backlog. Page & Turnbull embraces the honor and responsibility of working to maintain and restore beloved historic structures on public lands. The forces that drove the original design and construction of these landmarks are the same factors that make conservation efforts difficult. Consider the complications for transporting the materials, equipment, and people to remote sites with tough terrain and no roads. Think about the creative approaches to designing buildings that complement the majestic wilderness and draw tourists, and the resulting unusual—often innovative for their time—construction techniques employed to realize that vision. Throw in a scarcity of skilled local tradespeople, as well as the absence of building codes and regulation typical of early 20th-Century wilderness areas, and one begins to understand how the resulting buildings are each a distinct product of their specific time and place. This makes the architecture an inextricable part of our history, unique not only in design, but in construction and American ingenuity.

Consider the Desert View Watchtower, designed by noted architect Mary Jane Colter in 1914, which for many visitors to the Grand Canyon is an essential component of the trip. Most visitors will be struck by the building’s particular relationship to the Western architectural vernacular. In fact, the building’s unique aesthetic is the result of an approach to construction that grappled with a site difficult to reach with building materials, and where most available laborers were railroad workers. The result is an unusual structure of stone walls engaged with a steel frame, prone to leaks and other issues. The objective of resulting conservation work was to help preserve both the structure itself and original Hopi artwork inside. 

Structures like the Badger Pass Ski Lodge, the Desert View Watchtower, and Cape Hatteras Lighthouse are irreplaceable parts of our nation’s rich cultural, architectural, and environmental legacy, and they are only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, in a country where public lands number in the thousands of square miles, with thousands of related monuments and historic structures.

Desert View Watchtower is only one such treasure of the public lands of the American Southwest, most of which are in dire need of maintenance, repairs, and more. Across the country, Page & Turnbull Principal John Lesak worked earlier in his career to preserve the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. Located along North Carolina’s Outer Banks, the site offers rich lessons in the history of seafaring, coastal architecture, and the Civil War. In danger of its foundation being undermined by rising seas and shifting shoals, the Light Station required a 2,900-foot relocation to safer ground. The project now serves as an example of managed retreat from sea-level rise.

Another example of unique historic architecture and its challenges can be found in California’s portion of the Yosemite, where Badger Pass Ski Lodge stands as one of only two such amenities in the National Parks System. The Rustic architecture with Swiss chalet-style influences suffered from decades of deferred maintenance. In 2008, Page & Turnbull produced a complete Historic Structure Report and a Cultural Landscape Report and Historic Structure Report in accordance with National Parks guidelines, followed by design work to improve visitor experience and preserve the structure, which has been a linchpin of the Badger Pass Ski Area appeal since 1935. 

Part of the work on the structure included bringing the building into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) — which will celebrate its 30th anniversary this year — making the primary facility universally accessible to all visitors, and providing improved circulation, connectivity and amenities that meet ADA requirements.

Structures like the Badger Pass Ski Lodge, the Desert View Watchtower, and Cape Hatteras Lighthouse are irreplaceable parts of our nation’s rich cultural, architectural, and environmental legacy, and they are only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, in a country where public lands number in the thousands of square miles, with thousands of related monuments and historic structures. There is momentum behind the Great American Outdoors Act, which is likely to be signed into law in the White House once it is finalized in Congress. As citizen architects and U.S. residents who treasure the lands and all that stands on them, we urgently support and await its passage and enactment.

Lada Kocherovsky, AIA, and John Lesak, AIA, LEED AP, FAPT, are architects and principals with Page & Turnbull in San Francisco and Los Angeles, respectively. The firm is a full-service architecture, design, planning, and preservation firm that transforms the built environment, bringing together architects, planners, historians, and conservators to build new structures or imbue new life into existing structures by adapting them to meet contemporary needs.