Searching for Authenticity: Rustic Architecture in America 1877-1940

The iconic structures or National Park Rustic architecture or “Parkitecture”—the rustic log and stone buildings built in the Adirondacks and the West from 1887 to 1940, are some of the most valued but least understood moments in American architecture. 

Searching for authenticity: Rustic Architecture in America tells us their deeper history. Previous publications on these buildings expressed admiration for their apparent pioneer craft while showing little understanding of their real construction, focusing on the charm of their associations with the frontier while ignoring the larger historical context in which they were created. The historical truth is more complex—a story of massive destruction, social and economic, caused by the railroads who built those buildings at the same time. Yet there is in the best of this architecture something truly authentic, a product of the unique conditions of the West. At its best its’ designers drew on industrial power and indigenous craft, combining the aesthetics of the Western landscape with rustic European traditions to create an original architecture. Forty buildings are examined in detail. The text and the numerous original drawings unfold the story how the work was actually constructed in relation to its many enduring myths.

Edward Ford is the author of the two volumes of The Details of Modern Architecture (MIT), and The Architectural Detail (Princeton Architectural Press). His architectural work is the subject of Five Houses, Ten Details (Princeton Architectural Press) He has taught at Washington University-St. Louis, the University of Virginia, the University of Texas Austin, and other universities.