November 21, 2021

Cross-Country – At Hoover Dam

Cross-Country – At Hoover Dam

I rode across the country this past spring on a motorcycle that I had bought during the winter from a guy in Orange County, California, just south of Los Angeles. We did the transaction online, and he kept the bike garaged until I flew out in April to pick it up after getting my COVID vaccinations. The planning for all of this helped generate a bit of adventure during the quiet time-out that COVID had imposed. The second night of the trip I stayed in Boulder City, Nevada, a few miles from Hoover Dam. The next morning I visited the dam and spent some time admiring it before continuing my ride.

Hoover Dam, remote and massive for its time, was considered a remarkable engineering accomplishment when it was completed in 1936. Over seven hundred feet high, it plugged the Colorado River at Black Canyon, a narrow gorge on the border between Nevada and Arizona. The damming of the Colorado created Lake Mead, a 100-plus mile long reservoir with a capacity of about nine trillion gallons when it’s full, at a height of about 1,220 feet above sea level. The dam tamed the damaging seasonal floods of the river, provided water and electricity for growing populations in the Southwest, and irrigated distant farmlands via complex channel systems. It’s not a stretch to say that Hoover Dam made the Southwest as we know it today possible. Today, though, with long-term drought and unsustainable water use, the reservoir is at only about 35% of its capacity, and its current height of 1,067 feet is not far above the minimum level for power generation at the dam.

Although engineering facts and environmental issues gave me a lot to consider as I was walking across the top of Hoover Dam, I was drawn to the design of its features. These features were executed with a fine sense of the Modernist and Art Deco design aesthetics that characterized LA architecture at the time. Four unadorned turrets rise up cleanly from the steeply sloping face of the dam. Projecting niches between the towers give spots to step away from the face and look down the scary distance to the generating plants far below. Brightly polished brass doors and other little details stand out against the smooth surfaces and curves of nicely-formed concrete. A wide canopy stretches in an arc between the two middle turrets, providing shade and a sense of safe enclosure for looking down the canyon from such a spectacular height. The intake towers close by on the Lake Mead side of the rim stand on cylinders of vertical concrete ribs topped with small polygonal structures done in the restrained style of the time, with lights that make the towers glow at night. It’s all a fitting aesthetic for a monument to the engineering and ingenuity and political will of the time.

My route from southern California to DC – three weeks and 4,200 miles.
The steeply sloped face of the dam was originally designed by the dam engineers with a projecting balcony and sculptured ornaments across the curve of the rim. The LA architect Gordon Kaufmann simplified the design, using cleaner lines consistent with the Modernist aesthetic of the time.

Looking downstream from the top of the dam, the generating stations far below face each other across the river. Today the generators operate only when the dam is required to release water. The bridge in the distance has a sidewalk for walking out and taking in the scene from even higher up. No thanks!

The turrets on either end of a concrete canopy are faced with five stacked bas-reliefs by Norwegian-born naturalized American sculptor Oskar J.W. Hansen. The turrets house elevators that used to take visitors down for tours of the inner workings of the dam.
The bas-reliefs on the Arizona side depict American Indians in heroic scenes and are inscribed with these words: “Since primordial times, American Indian tribes and Nations lifted their hands to the Great Spirit from these ranges and plains. We now with them in peace buildeth again a Nation.”
I loved this wide gently-curved concrete canopy that provides shade and a sense of enclosure along the top of the dam’s rim. The sunlight reflecting off the sloped dam face below lights the bottom of the canopy.

The projecting canopy and the robust concrete walls make for a nice look-out spot for the vistas down the steep gorge.

Art-Deco brass doors, frames, and stanchions contrast nicely with the smooth concrete surfaces and details.

There are two pairs of water intake towers on the Lake Mead side of the dam. This pair, on the Arizona end, shows Arizona time. If you want Nevada time, which is different during Daylight Savings Time, walk toward the other end for the Nevada clock.

The light bands of rock show the high-water mark – now about 150 feet above the current level of Lake Mead. The light color is from the leaching of minerals from the previously submerged rock. The lake/reservoir was last at full capacity in 1983.
The Hoover Dam Spillway House, on the Nevada side of the dam, was originally built in 1988 to house a snack bar, known as the Snacketeria. It was rebuilt in 2013 to address structural problems with the cantilevered foundation.

In addition to the bas-reliefs on the dam’s turrets, the sculptor Oskar J. W. Hansen also designed a dedication memorial on the Nevada side of the dam with a pair of impressive bronze statues. The arms of the figures extend up and merge with wings. The faces, muscles, and ribs are nicely abstracted.

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Filed Under: Architecture, Design, Motorcycling, Photography