Location Taken: Grand Tetons National Park, Wyoming
Time Taken: June 2010
It’s amazing how much the Grand Tetons National Park’s visitor center reminds me of a monastery.
Mind you, that’s Eastern monasteries, Buddhist ones with low sloping roofs and rock gardens. You know the type, it’s used as a shortcut to say “hey, we’re in the Orient!” in far too many shows.
Now, this isn’t a perfect match. The classic eastern monastery has tile roofs, while this has metal, even if both have the same general lines. Tile doesn’t need the corner flashing to redirect water, either, especially not the large obvious version this has. And the rock gardens, while both contain large rocks strategically placed to look like islands in a flat sea, are very different otherwise. It’s not carefully groomed sand and pebbles here, but simple flat brickwork. Far less work to maintain, but not as pretty.
And with those thick whole-log pillars holding up the roof and the thick planking, you can tell they were aiming a bit more for the back country log cabin/hunting lodge look that’s far more common in this part of the world. And the rest of the place doesn’t look too much like a monastery. There are advantages to building in this particular fashion, since it helps keep heating and cooling costs down with the flatter roof trapping the heat closer to the ground, and the large open sides letting the natural breeze in as needed. I see this odd amalgam of Eastern and Western designs a lot in modern buildings, the ones designed to be environmentally low-impact.
Though I’m not too fond of the large flat brick courtyard. It seems like just the thing to absorb the summer heat and reflect it right back up, far more than even sand would, much less anything as plebeian as grass. They probably use it for events and talks, but it doesn’t seem like that pleasant of a material to be standing on for too long. I know how much my legs hurt after an hour or two on hard surfaces. Give me dirt any day.
