Great Smoky Mountains National Park Observation Towers

National Park Service - Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Within the compass of this heading is included a wide range of structures, the common denominator of all being the provision of means for negotiating a view. Lookouts may eventuate from the practical requirement of forest fire detection, or from determination on the part of designing technician or willful band of park users, hyper-view conscious, for something bigger and better and more distant in views than Nature unaided could achieve. Between the grimly functional lookout of the ranger and the utmost in aesthetic structural elevation contrived by the view-for-view's-sakers is greater distance than any park vista will ever provide. When it has been essayed to superimpose the too conscious aspirations of the aesthetic, on the structurally sufficient skeleton of the fire detection tower, the literally "crowning" error in park development has been committed. Probably a frank rendering of either extreme, free of gesture toward the other, is better than any hybrid produced by crossing the two irreconcilables. Examination of existing timber-framed trestle-type lookout towers for aesthetic values will prove disheartening. In general, the oil derrick as their inspirational source is painfully undisguised. This conclusion cannot be held in disparagement of the designers, if it be honestly admitted that they have valiantly sought to solve the unsolvable.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Observation Towers

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