Painted Desert Community Complex Historic District
Paths outward
- Location
- Apache County, United States
- Year
- 1965
- Typology
- Landscape & Urban
- Materials
- Earth, Metal cladding
- Context
- Modernism, International Style, Mid-century Modern
- Map
- Open location
The Painted Desert Community Complex is the administrative center of Petrified Forest National Park. The community center includes administrative facilities, utility structures and National Park Service employee housing, planned by architects Richard Neutra and Robert Alexander as part of the Mission 66 park facilities improvement program. Work on the community began in 1961 and was completed by 1965. The complex contrasts with earlier Park Service architecture that sought to blend with the environment. The Painted Desert community used straight manufactured materials that deliberately draw a contrast with the natural environment.
