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Stanley Abbott's design for the Blue Ridge Parkway worked to provide relief from urban stress and the artificial nature of city life .In the development of a parkway, man shaped nature to provide the best possible space.

However, this is not to say that the parkway is simply capturing the natural world as a found object. Instead, this new type of space was ,at least in part, a work of artifice. One example of this can be found at the dam at Lake Abbott. At first glance, the dam seems to be made entirely of rusticated stone. However, it is made of concrete with a thin stone-veneer covering. The illusion is that you are seeing things the way "they used to be." The fact is that this dam is just one of the specially created works for the viewers who travel the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Not only the buildings and bridges on the parkways were meant to blend with the character of the area, but also the park buildings are meant to merge with the natural surroundings as much as possible. Nolen and Hubbard outline that these buildings should be "invariably designed to serve their purpose in a straightforward manner"( Nolen and Hubbard, p. 83).

Good examples of this purposeful "merging" style in fences, bridges, and buildings can be found all along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Excursion: new techniques in tunnel building

Click to view new tunnel building techniques on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The bridge at the meeting of Route 250 and the Blue Ridge Parkway serves as another example of a work of artifice meant to blend. The outside of this bridge is stone-veneer applied to concrete(Blue Ridge Parkway, Engineering Features, Slide no. 4).It is easy to see that the stone bridge harmonizes perfectly with the existing rock outcroppings.

Even the gas stations are modeled to fit in as in the case of the one located at Peaks of Otter. Completely a work of artifice, it was created to synchronize with the character of the place.

A fence near the Peaks of Otter Lodge makes for an especially good example of this "harmonizing with the landscape" quality; it is even referred to as a "reconstructed vernacular fence"(Blue Ridge Parkway, Location and Typical Views Along Northern Section, Slide no.1).It is almost as if a "disneyification" of the Blue Ridge Parkway has occurred in the re-creating of a former reality that may or may not have existed.