Beaver Meadows Visitor Center, also known as Rocky Mountain National Park Administration Building, is the park headquarters and principal visitors center of

Rocky Mountain National Park Rocky Mountain National Park is an American national park located approximately northwest of Denver in north-central Colorado, within the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. The park is situated between the towns of Estes Park to the east and ...

in central northern

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

. Completed in 1967, it was designed by

Taliesin Associated Architects Taliesin Associated Architects was an architectural firm founded by apprentices of Frank Lloyd Wright to carry on his architectural vision after his death in 1959. The firm disbanded in 2003. It was headquartered at Taliesin West in Scottsdale, A ...

, and was one of the most significant commissions for that firm in the years immediately following the death of founder

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...

. National Historic Landmark summary
''National Historic Landmarks Program, accessed 31 October 2007'' It was also one of the last major projects completed under the Park Service

Mission 66 Mission 66 was a United States National Park Service ten-year program that was intended to dramatically expand Park Service visitor services by 1966, in time for the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Park Service. When the National P ...

project. It was declared a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 2001.Sarah Allaback and Ethan Carr (September 1, 2000) , National Park Service and

Description and history

The Beaver Meadows Visitor Center is located on the south side of United States Route 36 near the principal eastern entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. As seen from visitor (north) side, the building presents as a single-story structure, but is actually two stories owing to the sloping terrain on which it is built. It is a rectangular structure, built with a steel frame and cast concrete panels, into which slabs of sandstone have been embedded. The upper level framing has

Cor-Ten Weathering steel, often referred to by the genericised trademark COR-TEN steel and sometimes written without the hyphen as corten steel, is a group of steel alloys which were developed to eliminate the need for painting, and form a stable ru ...

steel set in a zigzag pattern inspired by Native American artworks. The building's eastern end is devoted to visitor facilities, including a lobby, amphitheater, and shop, with an inside observation area and outside balcony providing views of the Rocky Mountains. The western end houses park offices in a modular design with movable partitions. Rocky Mountain National Park was founded in 1915. As part of the Park Service's

program to revitalize the nation's park system, the Park Service hired the firm of

in 1964 to design a new visitors center for the park. Construction began in 1965 and was completed in 1967. The building has been relatively little altered since then: the shop occupies a former lobby area that included benches and a fireplace, and changes in equipment for the theater necessitated the closure of a balcony entrance.

Map

References

External links

Rocky Mountain National Park Official SiteBeaver Meadows Visitor Center, described in Fodors guidebook
{{Protected areas of Colorado National Historic Landmarks in Colorado Buildings and structures in Larimer County, Colorado National Park Service visitor centers Mission 66 Tourist attractions in Larimer County, Colorado Park buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Colorado National Register of Historic Places in Larimer County, Colorado 1967 establishments in Colorado National Register of Historic Places in Rocky Mountain National Park

Description and history

Map

See also

References

External links