Jackson Lake Lodge: Where Rustic Met Modern
Wyoming
In nineteen fifty, John D. Rockefeller Jr. commissioned architect Gilbert Stanley Underwood to design a new lodge for Grand Teton National Park.
Underwood had spent decades building the great rustic lodges of the national park system, but Rockefeller wanted something different. The result, which was completed in nineteen fifty-five, was startlingly new: slabs of wood-grain-textured concrete, towering panes of glass in the main lobby, and a terrace overlooking Jackson Lake with the full Teton Range beyond. The lodge is often seen as a turning point for modern design in the national parks.
Architects and critics took notice. The rustic-log aesthetic that had defined park architecture for half a century gave way to something sleeker, and Jackson Lake Lodge became a National Historic Landmark for making that shift.
