Architecture as Naturalistic Art

[Mike_Cirba]

Please forgive my indulgences and plagiarism, but I thought the following essay was BRILLIANT, and was concerned it may escape notice under Geoff S's "Max Behr" thread.  

In the past many months, I have tried to put words to what I see as a common failing of new course design, as well as some way to specifically state my objections to the results of some much-discussed "restoration" projects.

To my frustration, and despite my voluminous words, I've been generally unable to make my point in an effective way.  As it turns out, Mr. Behr said it for me a long time ago.  

Artifice as a replacement for ART in golf architecture is why we reactively object to rock walls lining water hazards, well-groomed, symmetrically shaped, and trimmed sand hazards, flat fairways, double and triple tiered greens, containment mounds, and a host of other modern features.

When such features are unnaturally placed on a classic course that is already brilliantly artistic, natural looking and in tune with its surroundings, we sometimes SCREAM at the affront to our senses and good taste.  

It's a gut-level reaction to the destruction of beauty and art and its replacement with incongruous craft.

I'll let Mr. Behr tell us why.  Thanks for sharing Geoff...

Naturalness in Golf Architecture
By Max Behr, 1926

The Nature the golf architect has in mind is one associated with golf, and this is linksland upon which golf has been played for hundreds of years, and remained through a major part of this time uncontaminated by the hand of man except for the cutting of the holes. Whatever beauty such land possessed was inherent in it, and those today who have played golf amidst such primeval surroundings are conscious of a certain charm wholly lacking upon a palpable man-made golf course.

In this country architects are presented with few locations the topography of which is ideally fitted for the playing of golf. Hence, the architect must improve upon Nature. But such improvements have primarily to with rendering Nature suitable for golf, and do not necessarily involve any improvement of Nature itself except for the definite purpose in hand.

Is it important that the architect should endeavor to go further and combine art with the utilitarian side of his work? It would seem so. And for this reason: Golf courses constructed with the limited idea of merely creating a playground around which one may bat a ball comfortably make possible only the efforts of one side of the contest, that of the golfer, and owing to this neglect, he finds himself confronted with a landscape brutalized with the ideas of some other golfer. Does he object?

Of course he does. He too has ideas of his own. Consequently the history of every artificial appearing golf course is one of continual change. There is a very practical lesson in this and one that can be translated into dollars and cents. And this is that golf architecture can only be rendered permanent by art. Art is usually associated in the mind with the aesthetic, but if we comprehend it in a larger sense, it will be seen that only by art is every walk of life rendered stable and enduring. If, then, for practical reasons we are justified in looking upon golf architecture as an art and not merely a means to an end, we shall find it closely akin to landscape gardening. What are the requisites to perfection in this art? Humphrey Repton, the great landscape gardener of the XVIII Century, has perhaps most concisely and perfectly stated them:

“First it must display the natural beauties and hide the natural defects of every situation. Secondly, it should give the appearance of any extent and freedom by carefully disguising or hiding the boundary. Thirdly, it must studiously conceal every interference of art, however expensive, by which the scenery is improved making the whole appear the production of nature only; and, fourthly, all objects of mere convenience or comfort, if incapable of being made ornamental, or of becoming proper parts of the general scenery, must be removed or concealed.”

If may never be possible to live up to such an ideal in golf architecture. In endeavoring to create an harmonious whole there are bunkers, greens, fairways and rough to be considered. Nevertheless where it is necessary to modify the ground to create these features, their contours can be made to seem as if they had always been, and their civilized aspect, because necessary to golf, will not be an affront to the natural beauty they reveal."

[RJ_Daley]

Mike, I would like you to consider Behr's words (particularly the last two paragraphs) in context to the picture lableled "17 from the landing area" that Pete Galea has posted on his thread "Wyantenuck CC".  I am calling that picture "Green River Falls".  Despite the arrogance of daring to name someone else's picture, I hope Pete will allow me this transgression...

I haven't seen one that portrays the art of a man-made golf course that represents/suggests a natrual feature such as a river falls spilling through the woods in any other composition quite so well done. I think I could come to that spot on that golf course and simply play my next shot up the river to the secluded and semi-blind mysterious green in the glade forever...or perhaps as my last shot ever...

[Jeff_McDowell]

Mike,

Thanks a million for the post.  This is why I love this site.

[Mike O'Neill]

Mike,

I have a great many thoughts on this subject and related subjects. But I won't bore you with all of them. I did want to say a couple things. The first is that we must accept that every golf course is an act of artifice. There is no way around that. So, as your post says, it is often best and most pleasing if that artifice is as natural as is possible.

What I find interesting is the question of just how do we define what is natural. There is a very involved question here and it dates back to the 1700's when landscape gardening was becoming more "natural". I once read a poem written by Alexander Pope, a poet, critic and gardener of his day. Primarily, Pope was considered one of the foremost literary critics of that time. He fancied himself a true landscape gardener also.  The poem was in part an attempt by Pope to address the question of what is an acceptable style for landscape gardening. On the one hand, formal landscaping had survived for centuries along with other formal arts. On the other hand, the gardenesque or naturalistic landscaping had taken over in many circles and Pope was going to tell us why. What he basically had to say was that plants could not be presented to our senses, to our sensibilities, if planted in formal rows or trimmed to look like objects or animals (topiary). What was fascinating to me at the time was that Pope used iambic pentameter in this poem, even as he criticized the artificial and distasteful uses of formalism and structure in the landscape. That struck me as amazing. Iambic pentameter is about as formal and structured as poetry gets. How could it be that Pope could not see the irony in that situation. He chooses to use a structured form of a linguistic art to criticize another use of structured form in a different "art". Without boring you with anymore of this, I concluded among other things that for Pope (and maybe for some golfers) it was acceptable, maybe even preferable, that a formal structure should be used in the arts, BUT NOT WHEN IT CAME TO NATURE ITSELF. Any use of nature MUST be natural. Anything else would fall so short of "Beauty" as to be distasteful. I could go on and on, but won't so that Ran can be spared the task of deciding if this has wandered away from golf.

But let me suggest another direction to go with this, for what it is worth. I have maintained for along time now that a golf course as "art", as artifice in fact, has its own set of aesthetic principles used for defining an appreciation for what is beautiful. It seems to me that one builds (sometimes very quickly and sometimes after a few rounds) an artistic appreciation for the "beauty" in a golf course that is different than the "beauty" one finds in a National Park or someone's garden. You will never find a golf green existing naturally in a National Park, so it is with a qualified "eye" that you perceive the "beauty" of a golf green. Soon, however, you find you have established a psychological and sensory (artistic) appreciation for golf holes. You begin to look at mowing patterns and bunkers placed in calculated ways and green complexes and fairway lines and you get aesthetic pleasure from perceiving those sights. But you are not perceiving "Nature". An appreciation of the beauty of a golf hole is not the same as appreciating the beauty of nature (going back to Pope). It is I will suggest an acquired taste that derives from an understanding of many things--beautiful form, the rub of the green, the strategy of a hole, the flight of the ball, etc. It is like music appreciation in that sense. You must know somehow that "language" with which to read that beauty.

I had better stop now. YIKES  

[Mike_Cirba]

RJ,

Thanks for the link, and I totally agree with you about the landscape paintings and the hole Pete shared with us.  It's to die for.

Jeff,

I'm glad you enjoyed it, but proper credit should go to Geoff Shackelford and Max Baer.  

Mike,

That was a wonderful post and there is NO WAY that Ran would ever delete it.  If that isn't about golf course architecture, then nothing on this site is!

By the way, I agree that our appreciation of golf course beauty is a mixture of a course that doesn't offend our natural sensibilities, while also being the aquired, strategic and tactical man-made appreciation you mentioned.

Contrarily, I think that Pope was possibly using the irony of structured iambic pentameter simply to create sardonic irony.  He was quite the fellow.

[ForkaB]

I'm having some trouble coming to grips with Behr's ideas on this subject.

He obviously writes beautifully, as do all the essayists of his age.  From that alone, we can learn a lot.  He was fortunate enough to live in an age when exciting new courses were being built and old ones were being transformed to cope with new technology.

His explanation of the virtualy complete predominance of nature in the earliest links courses, right up to the turn of the last century, is eloquent and accurate.  After that, however, he falters in his attempt to equate the new discipline of golf course architecture to art, IMO.  The quote from Repton seems to describe Shadow Creek much more than Sand Hills.

I think Mike O"niell is getting closer to the truth, in recognizing the dynamic nature of the interaction between the golfer and his environment.  If golf course architecture is "art" it is much more akin to the "performance art" of modern times than "landscape architecture" or any other traditional form.

PS--Pope couldn't help writing in iambic pentameter since free verse wasn't "invented" until 100+ years after his death.  However, if there was any irony to be found in any situation, you can be sure he would have noticed it.

[T_MacWood]

A Garden or Park can only be fully appreciated by the active viewer moving through the landscape, therefor Landscape Architecture would also fall under a similar definition of performance art. Likewise a work Architecture, a public building or home, is not static, nor can it be considered a great work of art if does not meet the needs of the activity (or activities) for which it was designed.

I too have a problem with Repton's quote, especially when he talks about hiding the natural defects. In my mind the reason Nature is interesting is because of her defects. What Repton was interested in creating by elimination, is in many ways in conflict with what the golf-architect was looking for and attempting to emphasize. I equate natural defect with interesting feature - for example 'broken' ground.

[Mike_Cirba]

Rich/Tom,

That's a subtle but important distinction you've noticed when Repton mentions about "hiding natural defects".  

I think I may have casually overlooked that when reading it to mean that a golf course should be as natural looking as possible, and mentioned the associated art employed in doing so.

Repton was seeking to narrow nature down to only the "beautiful" parts, it seems.  Frankly, golf courses need the seemier looking parts of nature, as well.  Good point!

[TEPaul]

Why is "broken ground" a natural defect? Because Repton or some other architect says it is? Maybe Repton meant that an outhouse in view from the garden is the defect. Or is an outhouse never natural because man made it? Is this kind of thing getting into the realm of the half eaten pear in a bunker?

When I first spoke with Bill Kittleman we were talking about really natural looking bunkers versus bunkers that were not natural looking. And he really told me a lot. But in the end he told me that no matter how natural a bunker could be made to look in the end it was inherently unnatural because somebody made it.

I guess I probably answered my own question about the outhouse, alhtough for years I've never been totally clear on the half eaten pear! But I agree with you Tom, I think. Who is Repton to really say what's a defect in nature and what isn't?

[Adolf Loos]

The house has to please everyone, contrary to the work of art which does not. The work is a private matter for the artist. The house is not. The work of art is brought into the world without there being a need for it. The house satisfies a requirement. The work of art is responsible to none; the house is responsible to everyone. The work of art wants to draw people out their state of comfort. The house has to serve comfort. The work of art is revolutionary; the house is conservative.  The work of art shows people new directions and thinks of the future. The house thinks of the present.  Man loves everything that satisfies his comfort.  He hates everything that wants to draw him out of his acquired and secured position and that disturbs him.  Thus he loves the house and hates art.  Does it not follow that the house has nothing in common with art and is architecture not to be included among the arts?  That is so.  Only a very small part architecture belongs to art: the tomb and the monument.  Everything else that fulfils a function is to be excluded from the domain of art.

[Mike_Cirba]

Adolph Loos,

If the definition of "art" requires something that is both "private" and "hated", does it follow that anything that is "public" and "loved" cannot be art?

You seem to have drawn some really black and white distinctions that may make sense at a purist, philosophical level, but seems to fail the "real world" test.

[Adolph Loos]

 
Ornament is wasted manpower and therefore wasted health. It has always been like this. But today it also means wasted material, and both mean wasted capital.

As ornament is no longer organically related to our culture, it is also no longer the expression of our culture.  The ornament that is produced today bears no relation to us, or to any other human or the world at large.  It has no potential for development. What happened to Otto Eckmann’s ornaments, and those of Van de Velde?  The artist always stood at the center of humanity, full of power and health.  The modern producer of ornament is, however, left behind or a pathological phenomenon.  He disowns his own products after only three years.  Cultivated people find them instantaneously intolerable, others become conscious of their intolerability after many years.  Where are Otto Eckmann’s ornament’s today? Where will Olbrich’s work be, ten years from now?  Modern ornament has no past and no future.  Uncultivated people, to whom the significance of our time is a sealed book, welcome it with joy and disown it after a short while.

Today mankind is healthier than ever before; only a few are ill.  These few, however, tyrannize the worker, who is so healthy that he is incapable of inventing ornament which they have designed, in the most diverse materials.

[BarnyF]

Mies van der Rohe when describing his all glass Farnsworth house he built outside of Plano, IL said "Landscaping is more significant when viewed from the inside of a house than from the outside".  BarnyF's take on this statement as it relates to golf course design is that landscaping is more significant when viewed from the fairway than the highway.  I think this is an important point when criticising the created utopias some modern architects create, most notably Shadow Creek.  This is just one reason I find it difficult to analyze courses from pitures from car windows and airplanes.  Evolution of the modern psyci does not allow the same definition of what was natural in the 1700's to compare to what is natural today.  Nature is not static and does not consists of only organic materials...Nature is what we percieve it to be...therefore what is natural changes with time as our perceptions change.

[Mike_Cirba]

Barney,

I hear you as relates to "perspective" having the power to change what is observed.  However, I don't think that perspective necessarily negates or diminishes what is observed, only that one's understanding can change by degrees as one is introduced to a greater number of perspectives looking at the same thing.

Some months ago, there was a very vigorous discussion in here related to the question of whether someone could give an opinion of a course, or hole, or feature, based on pictures.  That progressed to a discussion of whether someone could do so based on television pictures....and on and on..

I think the general consensus after awhile was that yes, someone could offer an opinion, but that opinion would have to be weighed against someone who may have been privy to more perspectives than that.  Basically, the greater number of perspectives a person has of something, the more educated should be their viewpoint, all other things being equal.

Of course, that was all with the caveat that there is a major difference between a person with a trained eye, versus someone who could look at the Mona Lisa with a microscope and still only see a drab woman.

I don't wish to dredge up that lengthy topic again, but I think that knowledgable people can react and offer opinions on anything they view, including pictures.  It should be realized, however, that they are only seeing "part of the picture".  

Barny, I'd also ask you to clarify what you mean by "not everything in nature is organic materials".  That would seem to be a oxymoron, by definition.  

[Mike_Cirba]

Adolph,

You seem to have a great deal of knowledge about art theory.  Unfortunately, I do not, nor I suspect do many others in here.

Perhaps you can help us understand your points better by illustrating using some golf course examples?  I know I'm interested to hear, simply based on your non-golf examples.

[ForkaB]

Mike

I posted the second "Adolph Loos" comment after being inrigued by the first one and looking up Adolph on the internet and in my encyclopedia.  I thought the ornamentation quote was interesting, if a bit turgid (probably doesn't translate too well from the original German), and had some relevance to one of the central isues of this thread, form and function, as well as to the "disposable society" threads in some of Patrick Mucci's recent posts.

I also liked the reference to Van de Velde and wondered if Jean was related to that long-dead ornamentalist and whether or not this aspect of his genetic makeup led to that fatal form over function decision he made at Carnoustie 2+ years ago......

[Mike_Cirba]

Rich,

Thanks for clarifying.  I found the following under a search for Adolph Loos.  I made a few minor changes to make it "golf-oriented";

"The simulation of real world visual phenomena is a carefully staged production, which plays in the realm between optical deception and technical certainty.

The modelling of architecture on the computer for presentation can be seen as a controlled revelation. Parts of the model are better defined and more detailed than others, and so are articulated in the images of the model, distracting the gaze of the audience from those sections that are not so resolved.

Reality has an almost infinite level of detail. To model this would be ridiculous and so reality is approximated. Enough detail is included to fool the casual glance. The eye wants to be fooled, and readily accepts the computer generated perspective as reality. Small details add to the illusion, rounded edges on bunkers catch the light, defining those edges, ridges are added to better define changes in materials or textures.

Images of the model flip between the experience of the object and the experience of space. The illusion of perspective more readily allows the audience to inhabit the space of the model, images are then read as impressions of space. Parallel projections or unfamiliar perspectives tend to exclude any immediate spatial impression as the mind tries to make sense of what it sees, and is forced into an abstract mode of seeing, where images are interpreted as renderings of objects.

The inclusion of recognisable objects such as bunkers and mounds, provide keys to the interpretation of the images generated. Free of the defined up and down of the page or computer screen some of the images presented in this report defied gravity. People found it difficult to decide on the orientation of images until they were made aware of signifiers such as those described immediately above.

Images of the model flip between the experience of the object and the experience of space. The illusion of perspective more readily allows the audience to inhabit the space of the model, images are then read as impressions of space. Parallel projections or unfamiliar perspectives tend to exclude any immediate spatial impression as the mind tries to make sense of what it sees, and is forced into an abstract mode of seeing, where images are interpreted as renderings of objects.

Seductive images, inspired by those in the architectural periodicals and golf magazines, are the final product of the modelling process. Selected views are FRAMED and articulated, the experience of the spaces defined and controlled.

When the act of modelling is a re-creation of another person's creative act, it is possible to gain an insight into that other person's thinking. The modelling becomes not so much a literal translation from one form of representation to another, but a personal interpretation,where the modeler's own ideas and themes influence the final product."

Why does this process sound vaguely familiar???  

[ForkaB]

Mike

Does this mean that I should be spending more time on the golf course and less time on the computer?  If so, Loos was more prophetic than I thought!

PS--how's it going on the negotiations for TV rights to the Goodale/BarnyF vs. Cirba/Paul match?  Just let my agent know, ASAP.

Rich

[T_MacWood]

Adolph Loos had great difficulty practicing what he preached, his designs were heavily influenced by both the neo-Classical and Arts & Crafts. As far as what is and isn't art, that is a personal judgement, but he certainly took a very narrow view, and was in conflict with two of the most influencial voices of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Architecture is an art for all to learn because all are concerned with it -
John Ruskin

No person who is not a great sculptor or painter can be an architect. If he
is not a sculptor or painter, he can only be a builder - John Ruskin

Architecture is the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by
man, for whatever uses, that the sight of them may contribute to his mental
health, power and pleasure - John Ruskin

The mother art is architecture. Without an architecture of our own we have
no soul of our own civilization - Frank Lloyd Wright

Architecture is the scientific art of making structure express ideas - Frank
Lloyd Wright

He exposes all the function on the top and puts the form below. It's as if
you were to wear your entrails on top of your head - Frank Lloyd Wright on Loos

True ornament is not a matter of prettifying externals. It is organic with
the structure it adorns, whether a person, a building, or a park. At its
best it is an emphasis of structure, a realization in graceful terms of the
nature of that which is ornamented - Frank Lloyd Wright

BarneyF
If Mies van der Rohe is correct and landscaping is more significant when viewed from the inside of a house than from the outside. Wouldn't a golf course be more significant if viewed from an automobile or a cart?

I agree that there is primival desire for man to see, unfortunately van der Rohe's design does not meet the second criteria - to see without being seen. Failed experiment.

Fazio's golf designs, like Shadow Creek, have been criticized for both their hyper-naturalism, lacking the defects found honestly in nature and for a shortage of strategic interest - lacking thought provoking qualities. Is that a fair assessment? And how would my evolved modern psyci change my perception of the strengths and/or weaknesses of Fazio's (or any other designer for that matter) golf course designs?

[Slag_Bandoon]

  Fazio's Shadow Creek costs $500 to play.  That is NOT natural.  

 Alas, we are not the agrarian society we once were and we may never see nature the same way as mankind did a hundred years ago.  We are too conditioned to processed nature.  

"Anomalies are the inherent beauties of nature"   NP
       

[BarnyF]

In reponse to my statement that nature does not consist of only organic materials I am refering to the cosmic issues each of us project upon nature. I do not see the ocean the same way as a sailor.  Parents of a lost child will never see a lone stand of trees the same as new parents holding their newborn safe in their arms.  Our memories and life experiences are projected on everything we see, touch or hear.  This is why in the human experience there is not an all encompusing definition of what is natural.  We are not intelligent enough to separate what is there and what we see...or the sound that is made and what we hear...so often we see what we want to see...hear what we want to hear...this is why I say nature is not all organic...I believe nature is basically a mirror..a reflection of what observes it...projecting a different image for each man remaining constant for none.

[Slag_Bandoon]

  BarnyF, Spot on, man!  I will recommend you as member to the Pagan Taoist Hedonistic Society of Golf Architecture.  I know the president so you're in.  No secret handshakes or animal whoops but we wear funny hats.

[T_MacWood]

Isn't man's view of nature innate.

Slag
That's the same thing the slum-dwellers of London and Manchester said during the height of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-1800's. But there was a shift toward the natural later that same century. Attitudes run in cycles. In some ways modern man is more in tune with nature because of ease of transportation, unprecedented information and hightened awareness.

BarneyF
Thanks for answering my questions.(0-3) That is second time you've brought up your van der Rohe thoughts, you must really like that design. Kind of like your admiration for Fazio's work, you know you like it, but you really can't put your finger on it -- you'd love to be able to explain it in clear terms, but you are unable without bringing up the beauty of the cactus, bunnies, the Dark Continent and your tastes in beastiality.

But I believe I understand now--nothing is what it seems--what I say today, is not what I will do tomorrow--the natural is unnatural and the unnatural is natural--we know everything, but yet we know nothing--emotion overrules reason and reason overrules emotion--puppies, Hitler, lost children, holding newborns, mirrors to the soul--we are constantly changing, constantly evolving, but the only true constant is our admiration for Fazio and hesitation to analyze golf architecture.

It sounds great to me and besides none of us is intelligent enough to recognize whatever we see, or whatever we're talking about for that matter. But if we lack intelligence to comprehend what we see, how are we intelligent enough to understand we don't see what is there?

I understand you don't see the sea as the sailor does, but how do you see a golf course? And do you see the golf course differently when holding a newbourn?

[TEPaul]

OK, fellows, back to the mundane world of golf and its architecture! Ran is getting pissed and he's thinking of charging you boys an IQ surcharge!

[Slag_Bandoon]

 Philosophies have changed relentlessly. From polytheism to monotheism to science and antitheism and the ongoing question of reality. The sophists of Greece's forums never agreed on anything; why should we.  (No thank you on the hemlock Buck's Fizz.)

Are we looking for a physical constant or an ephemeral idealic constant (there's an oxymoron) that will bind us in agreement to why we are enamored with these bleedin' golf courses?  

Art is subjective. Objects are subjective. All is subjective.

I think we are gleaners of the idea of nature.  We may have more access to the info of what makes up everything in the universe but we have detached ourselves in a way that  was once more existential and inseparable.  Our symbiosis is more and more becoming controlled into our favour at the cost and depletion of our symbiotic mother.    
 
 A good golf architect gives us an artistic rendition of his love for the game and land.