Thomas Chalmers Vint was a landscape architect

Landscape architect

A landscape architect is a person involved in the planning, design and sometimes direction of a landscape, garden, or distinct space. The professional practice is known as landscape architecture....

 credited for directing and shaping landscape planning

Landscape planning

Landscape planning is a branch of landscape architecture. Urban park systems and greenway of the type planned by Frederick Law Olmsted are key examples of urban landscape planning. Landscape designers tend to work for clients who wish to commission construction work...

 and development during the early years of the United States National Park System. His work at Yosemite National Park

Yosemite National Park

Yosemite National Park is a United States National Park spanning eastern portions of Tuolumne, Mariposa and Madera counties in east central California, United States. The park covers an area of and reaches across the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain chain...

 and the development of the Mission 66 program are among his better known projects, although his influence can be seen in parks across America. Vint's true talents lay in his design elements. These can best be described as rustic

National Park Service Rustic

National Park Service rustic, also colloquially known as Parkitecture, is a style of architecture that arose in the United States National Park System to create buildings that harmonized with their natural environment. Since its founding, the National Park Service consistently has sought to provide...

, relating to how he was able to harmonize structures with their natural surroundings.

Early life

Born in Salt Lake City, Utah

Salt Lake City, Utah

Salt Lake City is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. The name of the city is often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC. With a population of 186,440 as of the 2010 Census, the city lies in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, which has a total population of 1,124,197...

 to Scots-Irish

Scots-Irish American

Scotch-Irish Americans are an estimated 250,000 Presbyterian and other Protestant dissenters from the Irish province of Ulster who immigrated to North America primarily during the colonial era and their descendants. Some scholars also include the 150,000 Ulster Protestants who immigrated to...

 parents, Vint's family moved shortly after his birth to Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 where he spent his grade school years. Vint attended Polytechnic High School and upon graduation enrolled at the University of California

University of California

The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...

-Berkley

Berkley

- Places :United Kingdom* Berkley, SomersetUnited States* Berkley, Colorado* Berkley, Iowa* Berkley, Maryland* Berkley, Massachusetts* Berkley, Michigan* Berkley, Virginia, formerly a town, and now a neighborhood in Norfolk, Virginia...

 into the field of landscape architecture

Landscape architecture

Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor and public spaces to achieve environmental, socio-behavioral, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic investigation of existing social, ecological, and geological conditions and processes in the landscape, and the design of interventions...

. During his college years Vint worked for design and building firms throughout Los Angeles. He also found employment for an entire year alongside the successful landscape architect Lloyd Wright

Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright, Jr. , commonly known as Lloyd Wright, was an American landscape architect and architect, most active in Los Angeles and Southern California...

, the son of the famed architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

 Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...

.

Role in the National Park System

By November 1922, Vint was employed as a draftsman for the landscape architect Daniel Ray Hull

Daniel Ray Hull

Daniel Ray Hull , sometimes stated Daniel P. Hull, was an American landscape architect who was responsible for much of the early planning of the built environment the national parks of the United States during the 1920s...

. Hull was the National Park System's chief landscape engineer for Yosemite National Park, a project which Vint soon became familiar with. One year later, in 1923, Vint rose to the position of assistant landscape engineer for the National Park System, working alongside architects Gilbert Stanley Underwood

Gilbert Stanley Underwood

Gilbert Stanley Underwood was an American architect best known for his National Park lodges. Born in 1890, Underwood received his B.A. from Yale in 1920 and a M.A. from Harvard in 1923. After opening an office in Los Angeles that year, he became associated with Daniel Ray Hull of the National...

 and Herbert Maier

Herbert Maier

Herbert Maier was an American architect and public administrator, most notable as an architect for his work at Yosemite, Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Parks. Maier, as a consultant to the National Park Service, designed four trailside museums in Yellowstone, three of which survive as...

. Vint became an associate landscape engineer in 1926, and the following year he was promoted to the position of chief landscape architect for the Yosemite project, outranking Hull. In 1933 Vint moved to Washington to become the chief of the Park Service Branch of Plans and Designs, as position that was enormously influential in the planning, construction and conservation of the national parks. Vint was particularly active in the formulation and administration of design standards associated with the Park Service's Mission 66

Mission 66

Mission 66 was a US 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....

 program. Vint continued to be the foremost authority on architecture and landscape architecture for the National Park Service

National Park Service

The National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...

 until retiring in the 1960s.

Design style

At a time when park designers were focusing inward to plan appropriate park infrastructure

Infrastructure

Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function...

, Vint masterfully dealt with the new influx of people spawned by the ever-growing automobile age. More people headed to parks now, and facilities were becoming overwhelmed. Vint did not see this as a negative affect. He knew that the presence of people in the park would help with the park service's expansion and ultimately preservation, so long as structures harmonized with their environment. To solve these problems Vint knew it was important to understand the land well and how people would use this land, whether by themselves or in the presence of others. The need for new construction was evident, though Vint knew it would be important to not let new structures detract from the beauty of the nature in the park. His experimentation with using native materials such as logs and stone to construct buildings and bridges helped to naturalize the park environment. This design philosophy can be found in the plans of an earlier landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted

Frederick Law Olmsted

Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public administrator, and landscape designer. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, although many scholars have bestowed that title upon Andrew Jackson Downing...

, whose work in places such as New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

's Central Park

Central Park

Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...

 clearly influenced Vint's designs.

As Vint rose in the Park Service hierarchy, Vint quickly became influential in park planning processes. In particular, Vint in 1931 formulated the first master plan for any Park Service unit, at Mount Rainier National Park

Mount Rainier National Park

Mount Rainier National Park is a United States National Park located in southeast Pierce County and northeast Lewis County in Washington state. It was one of the US's earliest National Parks, having been established on March 2, 1899 as the fifth national park in the United States. The park contains...

, which would be established as a basic planning principle from that point on for every park. One of the principles established in this study was the specific designation of certain park areas as wilderness

Wilderness

Wilderness or wildland is a natural environment on Earth that has not been significantly modified by human activity. It may also be defined as: "The most intact, undisturbed wild natural areas left on our planet—those last truly wild places that humans do not control and have not developed with...

.

Legacy

During his time as chief landscape architect for the National Park Service, Vint managed to expand the landscape program of the park service into an efficient system with a foundation in the idea of natural designs and landscape preservation. He successfully created environments meeting the park service requirements of being accessible to the public while at the same time preserving the sites the way they are for future generations to enjoy. Through his rustic designs, Thomas Vint managed to produce environments that were not a mix of buildings and trees, but rather fluid landscapes that emphasized the beauty of their surroundings.

Notable projects

• Blue Ridge Parkway
  Blue Ridge Parkway
  The Blue Ridge Parkway is a National Parkway and All-American Road in the United States, noted for its scenic beauty. It runs for 469 miles , mostly along the famous Blue Ridge, a major mountain chain that is part of the Appalachian Mountains...
  
  
• Colonial National Historical Park
  Colonial National Historical Park
  Colonial National Historical Park is located in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia and is operated by the National Park Service of the United States government...
  
  
• Oregon Caves National Monument
  Oregon Caves National Monument
  Oregon Caves National Monument is a national monument in the northern Siskiyou Mountains of southwestern Oregon in the United States. The main part of the park, including the marble cave and a visitor center, is located east of Cave Junction, on Oregon Route 46. A separate visitor center in Cave...
  
  
• Historic American Building Survey
• Longmire
• Mission 66
• Yosemite