The Vacation Cabin Architecturally Reconsidered
The cabins at Inks Lake State Park are not much, but they are enough.
In October of 1921, Rudolph and Pauline Schindler spent two weeks vacationing in Yosemite National Park in central California. They stayed in Camp Curry, a rustic lodging complex featuring small individual tent cabins and cottages as well as larger shared facilities and outdoor spaces. Their experience served as a direct inspiration for the design of their Kings Road House the following year. Located in West Hollywood, the duplex had no dedicated living or dining rooms, and sleeping occurred in rooftop sleeping porches. Kitchen and other facilities were shared between the two families who lived there and the (relatively small) interior spaces directly connected to (relatively large) courtyards that served as outdoor rooms.
To be fair, Rudolph Schindler was an avant-garde architect who embraced a Bohemian lifestyle in a climate where outdoor living was possible. Aspects of the Kings Road House proved influential in the development of southern California modernism even if the co-housing model has been less widely adopted. What is worth considering, however, is the role temporary vacation accommodation can play in reimagining what permanent housing can be.
A vacation represents a purposeful effort to leave behind the familiar world of the everyday to seek out unique experiences. As such, travelers are primed to be receptive to alternative ways of living. And so while the generic chain motel might offer more predictable (and affordable) options if a bed is just needed for the night, the small vacation cabin has the potential to offer a far greater range of architectural experiences. The growth of online platforms such as VRBO and Airbnb speak to the demand for a greater range of alternatives.
As a distilled version of a single-family home, a cabin need only provide basic accommodations for a limited amount of time. Ironically, the same characteristics that define a cabin as a lesser house paradoxically give it greater architectural potential. Because it need not function as a permanent residence, it is free to expand the boundaries of what a “house” can be by offering alternate modes of living in more unconventional locations. It represents a unique opportunity to demonstrate how the built environment can intensify the human experience both by focusing attention inward towards a particular activity or outward to engage with a particular landscape. It thus can challenge its occupants to approach their lives differently once they leave the small vacation cabin behind and return both to their larger, more luxurious homes and their larger, more complicated lives.
The vacation cabin is not in it self a solution to the issues facing housing in America (or anywhere else). Rather, it represents an opportunity to directly experience potential alternatives. A cabin today offers visitors a chance to retreat and reassess just as a cabin afforded Thoreau a similar opportunity over 175 years ago. By deliberately living simply and immersing oneself in nature, space is created to reconsider what is necessary. A stay in a small cabin has the potential to redefine what is “enough.”
