The kids’ area features a working geyser as its centerpiece. It’s clear NPS officials consider education to the centerpiece of this area: it’s designed for presentations as much as anything else.

As noted, the place was crammed during the opening. It’s already changed how people park in the general area – forget about easy parking behind Old Faithful Inn and beside the Snow Lodge on a busy day -- and it’s sure to be a continuing attraction.

Still, there’s the sense that some opportunities were missed. First, there’s a lot of space devoted to the main entry hall and not enough to the exhibit hall, where the offerings seem crammed, not flowing together at all. The second floor is the province of the Park Service, we’re told, so the only public spaces are on the ground floor. For a building with such a large footprint, we might have expected a little more public space.

And the choice of architectural style can also be questioned. Sure, it’s a popular move to mimic the “parkitecture” of neighboring Old Faithful Inn; the new building is a bookend to an old classic.

But if you look at the history of Old Faithful Inn, you’ll see that Robert Reamer invented the style virtually on the fly, adapting to the materials at hand while constructing an architectural language that’s been played out in other National Parks. It’s such a paradigm that Disney felt no compunction in borrowing it for a DisneyWorld theme hotel.

Similarly, the Jackson Lake Lodge in nearby Grand Teton National Park was attacked as being too cutting-edge when it opened in 1955; ironically, it was attacked for not fitting in the parkitecture style of the area. That building, of course, has aged remarkably well and is a architectural highlight for anyone visiting the area.

Old Faithful Inn and Jackson Lake Lodge were successful because they pushed the envelope. There’s no pushing the envelope with the new Visitor Education Center.