Did the Arts and Crafts Movement really influence GCA?

[T_MacWood]

Tom
There really wasn’t an A&C style of architecture…that is one of the unique aspects of the movment. A&C Architecture in Pasadena was completely different from architecture in Surrey, which was completely different from Chicago, and Boston, and Glasgow, and Helsinki. They shared certain basic principles, but their was great regional variation.

The A&C Movement was not the usual art movement like say Impressionism (painting) or Hip Hop (music) which affected a single medium, it was all encompassing, affecting all aspects of design….including golf architecture.

[Kirk Gill]

Labels should be used to inform, not to exclude. If someone wants to use a term like "arts and crafts golf course architecture," and if one has a clue about what that term has been used for in the past, isn't it instructive, or interesting? I think so. Labels are rarely used by the people who actually DO something, just by those who talk about them and write about them.

The term "impressionism" wasn't coined by an artist, it was coined by an art critic. The changes in thought that characterized the impressionist movement did NOT just affect a single medimum (visual art). There were composers of music like Debussy who were also dubbed impressionists at the time, although they may have resisted the label themselves. In literature there was the symbolist movement (again, not necessarily a label that was used by the writers themselves)that was characterized by a search for meaning through indefinite impressions, and is generally associated with the impressionist movement in art.

I guess the point I'm making is that when critics decide to categorize artistic endeavours with one label or another it's to acknowledge certain connections that exist between one bit of art and another. Prior to seeing it on this site, I'd never heard the term "Arts and Crafts Golf Course Architecture" used before, but it makes sense. It's perhaps harder to pin that label on a course than it is to put it on a chair or a bungalow, but it's interesting to note that the same kind of thought processes that resulted in those chairs and those bungalows helped to create those courses.

[Adam_F_Collins]

Adam
It was a major trend. Golf was not reallly popular in Britain until the early 1890's, ... you had guys like Tom Dunn building course after course, usually in a single afternoon. The Victorian courses were sprouting everywhere.

Eric is right. Country Life was a major influence in spreading the ideals of the new country life, which included the A&C aesthetic. Horace Hutchinson, a true renaissance man, was the voice for golf and golf architecture for that magazine.

Tom Dunn is the only "Victorian" builder we ever hear of. And why do we call them "Victorian" anyway? Was there really a "Victorian" golf course tradition? In 1890, there were 387 golf clubs in Britain. In 1900, there were 2330 and by 1910, there were 4135. How many of these were Victorian? And how many are left?

It seems to me that there was a popularity explosion and people raced to meet the demand. Some knew what they were doing, others didn't - and those who didn't had their work disappear.

It doesn't seem like there was ever really a Victorian tradition, and if there was, where is the evidence of its voice? Where is the debate from the Victorian perspective? Who were its proponents and where is the evidence of its passing?

No, it appears more as if golf developed from the links tradition and there were some misguided attempts to create forms for inland golf which just never really reached the popularity of the game's original linksland forms.

By the time the golf boom really got underway, the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement were commonplace in the circles of the wealthy and influential. This is why the most important and well-received golf course developments where done by the "Golden Age masters" - and this is why that tradition has carried through to us today. It was too early in golf's development to be a "movement".

There have been many variations, but the tradition which Tom MacWood calls "Arts and Crafts" golf and which others call "Renaissance" or "Minimalist" today, is simply that same old tradition which was born on the links and remains there today.

That tradition precedes Arts and Crafts.

[ForkaB]

Adam

That last post of yours is too thoughtful and too non-GCA.COM-conformist. Get with the program, son, or else!

[DMoriarty]

TEPaul and Adam,

This post is addressed to Rich, but I discuss your positions at length, so you may want to take a look to see if I got anything wrong.  

Rich,

 I agree that Adam Foster Collins' post is thoughtful.  Yet in the end I am afraid that he falls into the same trap as TomP.  

First, They look around the landscape, fail to see "Victorian Golf Course Architecture," so they assume it never existed.  

Second, they see the obvious similarities between the true linksland courses and the great inland courses, and assume that there was a natural, uninterrupted progression from the former to the latter.  

Third, they substitute their conventional wisdom for rigorous fact finding and research.  

I discuss each pitfall below.  
________________
As to their first faulty assumption,  there is evidence that Victorian Architecture existed.  Tom asked for written proof from the time period and I cited an American Golfer article describing the inland courses before Sunningdale as "Victorian," and praising Willie Park, Jr. for intentionally breaking this mold and designing something more natural and in touch with golf's roots-- the linksland.  

He was one of the first-- I think we might also agree that he was the first-- to perceive the possibilities of inland golf course construction on a finder, grander scale than we know now. . . . Up to then the manner of designing and making a hole was to put a plain straight bank across the course in fron to be driven over, this arrangement while a a little sand in front of it, being known as a bunker, and, if the hole were long enough there was a simialr contrivance setu up immediately in front of the putting green.  Generally nothing more was necessary. . . . None of these things were beautiful to look upon, they gave no character to the holes, this being supplied only by local natural features as trees, watercourses and ponts; they were not the least interesting, and they made most holes look very much like each other.  Nor did they tend to the smallest improvement in the game of the player.   This was Victorian golf architecture, the standard for which was set by that indefatigable master of it, Willie Dunn . . . .  Willie Park perceived that there would soon be a demand for something much better and he set himself to devise it, to give to inland course some of the attributes of those at the seaside where the holes were fashioned by Nature and abounded in features of strong character..  . . . This scheme marked the beginning of the new principles in course architecture that have since revolutionized the whole of inland golf not only in England, but in parts of the continent of Europe, all over the US, Canada, and everywhere. . . .
-- Henry Leach, 'Park and the Past,' The American Golfer, March 1917

For another example of an architect of the time discussing the "Victorian Age" of golf course architecture and how he and others broke away from it, see Alister MacKenzie's section on "Some Qualifications of a Golf Course Architect" and the subsequent sections in his Spirit of St. Andrews . . .

In the Victorian era 50 years ago, almost all new golf courses were planned by professionals, and were, incidentially, amazingly bad.  They were built up with mathematical precision, a cop bunker extending from the rough on the one side, to the rough on the other, and a similar cop bunker placed for the second shot.  There was an entire absence of strategy, interest and excitemjent except where some natural irremovable object intervened to prevent the designer carrying out his nefarious plans.  
. . .
In the early days, all artificially made inland courses were designed on similar stereotyped lines.
    -- Alister MacKenzie, Spirit of St. Andrews

These two passages at least raise the inference that
1)There was a Victorian Era of Golf Course Architecture, and 2) That what we call Classic Architecture is at least in part a rejection of that Victorian Era in favor of an emulation of the aesthetics of the true links courses.  

So, why dont we see more evidence of these Victorian Age Courses?   My theory is that most of them were replaced with what are usually referred to as Classic Era courses (TomM's Arts and Crafts courses.)  
____________________

Second, they assume that the similarities between linksland and the "Classic Era" inland course somehow undercuts TomM's premise.  

The Arts and Crafts Movement wasn't just a rejection of the Victorian Age and Industrialism, it was also an attempt to move toward an earlier time of a simpler and more natural aesthetic.   In the medium of Golf Course architecture, this would take the designers back to the early linksland courses, cut by mother nature and not the hand of man.  

While this seems progression seems obvious and preordained today, it apparantly wasnt to John Dunn and whichever other professionals were laying out their geometrical crossbunkers.  
_______________

Their third pitfall is substituting their conventional wisdom for rigorous fact finding and research), they are free to agree with him or not.  But they must acknowledge that Tom MacWood has done and is doing the research.   Those that disagree with him would do well to do the same.   At least, that is, if they want their counter-arguments to be convincing.

[T_MacWood]

David
Thanks for the support...I have spent a lot of time and effort researching both early British golf architecture and the A&C movement. I am not re-writing golf architecture history...I'm just calling it as I see it. Some may agree, some will not. That level of analyzing golf architecture and its influences is not for everyone.

Adam
“Tom Dunn is the only "Victorian" builder we ever hear of. And why do we call them "Victorian" anyway?”

Tom Dunn was the favorite whipping boy because he was by far the most prolific.

I wouldn’t get too caught up in the term ‘Victorian’…Tom Simpson called it the Dark Ages, and courses of the Dark Ages. Along with Tom Dunn he included Tom Morris, Willie Dunn and Willie Park, Jr.

Colt, Alison and MacKenzie called it Victorian era, but I have heard other labels too. Darwin and Hutchinson didn’t call the era anything other than bad. Whatever the label, it was used to describe the new type of formulaic inland course, usually laid out in a single afternoon.

“It seems to me that there was a popularity explosion and people raced to meet the demand. Some knew what they were doing, others didn't - and those who didn't had their work disappear.”

Who knew what they were doing in the 1890’s? Which inland courses--of that era--survived because they were really good?

“It doesn't seem like there was ever really a Victorian tradition, and if there was, where is the evidence of its voice? Where is the debate from the Victorian perspective? Who were its proponents and where is the evidence of its passing?”

I could easily say: why should there be a voice for garbage? But its not the simple. There was very little written about golf (especially golf architecture) in the 1890’s…in books or magazines. I don’t believe I’ve ever read anything written by Tom Morris or Tom Dunn or Willie Dunn.

Perhaps we should look at the positive side of Victorian architecture…it was so bad it inspired men like Hutchinson and Garden Smith to write about golf architecture.

“No, it appears more as if golf developed from the links tradition and there were some misguided attempts to create forms for inland golf which just never really reached the popularity of the game's original linksland forms.”

You are right…it was misguided. It looked more like a steeplechase course than a golf course

“By the time the golf boom really got underway, the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement were commonplace in the circles of the wealthy and influential. This is why the most important and well-received golf course developments where done by the "Golden Age masters" - and this is why that tradition has carried through to us today. It was too early in golf's development to be a "movement".”

I don’t follow you.

“There have been many variations, but the tradition which Tom MacWood calls "Arts and Crafts" golf and which others call "Renaissance" or "Minimalist" today, is simply that same old tradition which was born on the links and remains there today.”
That tradition precedes Arts and Crafts.”

The architect of the first links was Mother Nature. Those courses were more found than built and they were beautifully natural. Inland golf course design of the 1880s and 1890s (the Victorian era) was of a completely different fashion….unnatural, geometric and static. That was followed by reform and a long period of naturalistic courses (inland for the first time).

When you move from one fashion to a completely different fashion its often called a movement, even when it’s a return or a revival….like the Renaissance (a revival of classical) or the Gothic-revival. True, they are inspired by an earlier tradition, but there still recognized as a separate movement.

[Adam_F_Collins]

Always interesting gentlemen. I enjoy the discussion. Excellent counter points. I appreciate your thoughtful posts and respect your positions.

I am happy that you are putting such solid effort into sifting through history's remains so that you might lend such interesting insights to this forum.

My hat's off to you - and a warm handshake on the eighteenth green.

[Jeff Goldman]

Further to Sean's post there apparently is a major exhibit on the Arts and Crafts Movement at the L.A. County Museum of Art (or whatever it's called).  An extended write up of the exhibit in the New Republic a few weeks ago was very laudatory, and I understand the exhibit will be traveling to Milwaukee and Cleveland at some point.

[DMoriarty]

Further to Sean's post there apparently is a major exhibit on the Arts and Crafts Movement at the L.A. County Museum of Art (or whatever it's called).  An extended write up of the exhibit in the New Republic a few weeks ago was very laudatory, and I understand the exhibit will be traveling to Milwaukee and Cleveland at some point.

The exhibit closed in Los Angeles in late February or early March.  The focus was on introducing different Arts and Crafts styles and offshoots from different countries.  I saw it numerous times, in part because I found it interesting but more because my daughter thought quite a few of the works were absolutely hilarious and kept asking to go back.  

I was wondering if the show Rich mentions above is the same show.

[Jeff Goldman]

Sorry about that.    I am working waay too hard and losing track of time.  The article gave a terrific review of the movement, as well as the exhibit.

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

I would agree with you that the disciplines are not in perfect harmony.  I would say that they are independent of one another.

Does all art move, monolithically ?  In unison ?

Or, do the different disciplines move independent of one another, within their own cyclical worlds.

Does a movement in painting or sculpture manifest itself with identical movements in music  ?

Is golf course architecture as evidenced by Robert Trent Jones in harmony with the music of the 30's, 40's and 50's ?

Is Coore & Crenshaw's and Tom Doak's work in harmony with hip hop or rap ?  

Or, are those fellows just walking around their sites with a bad case of the hives, causing them to itch, gyrate and jump up and down ?  

[T_MacWood]

"I would agree with you that the disciplines are not in perfect harmony.  I would say that they are independent of one another.

Does all art move, monolithically ?  In unison ?"

It is very rare...that there is so much commonality. What do you know of the Arts & Crafts Movement?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom MacWood,

Me, I know nothing.  And, next to you, who knows anything ?

We're all ignorant........... just on different subjects.

By the way, I understand that Ohio State has a new AD.
Where'd he come from ?

[DMoriarty]

Patrick,

Whether correct or not, your conclusion above seems to be based on generalities rather than the specific relevant facts and circumstances.  

Art generally does not move monolithically;  different  disciplines generally move independent of one another, within their own cyclical worlds; a movement in painting or sculpture does not generally manifest itself with identical movements in music;  the golf course architecture as evidenced by Robert Trent Jones is not necessarily in harmony with the music of the 30's, 40's and 50's; Coore & Crenshaw's and Tom Doak's work is not necessarily in harmony with hip hop or rap.

But I dont think any of these generalities apply with regard to the Arts and Crafts Movement.  

As TomM has often repeated, the Arts and Crafts Movement did not follow many of the usual rules of movements.  For example, as TomM has often repeated, the Arts and Crafts Movement was different in that there was no set style or formula.  Further, the Arts and Crafts movement did not move monolithically; different disciplines within the Arts and Crafts Movement moved independent of one another on many levels.  To take it even further, portions of the same disciplines often moved independently of each other, depending on the geographical location.  But it is still considered a Movement.  

I dont know that TomM would agree, but one can definitely argue that in its inception and at its core the Arts and Crafts Movement was as much a social movement as it was an art movement.  

Some connections between the gca and A&C:

-- Major advancements in gca (ex. Sunningdale occurred in locations where and during a time when the Arts and Crafts Movement was flourishing.  
-- Like the Arts and Crafts Movement, the gca in question was in large part a rejection of what Victorian design principles and aesthetics.
-- Like the Arts and Crafts Movement, gca attempted to return to the design principles and aesthetics of a simpler, pre-industrial time.  
-- Like the Arts and Crafts Movement, gca used the lines of nature as a primary guide and inspiration for design;  successful designs incorporated, imitated, emulated, and  sometimes blended into nature.
-- Like the Arts and Crafts artists, the cga designers were concerned with how users would interact with the product of their designs.  The designers attempted to build courses that would lift the players and their games to a higher level.

Patrick, specifically where do you see a major divergence between the gca designers discussed by TomM and the Arts and Crafts Movement?  

[ForkaB]

TEPaul and Adam,

This post is addressed to Rich, but I discuss your positions at length, so you may want to take a look to see if I got anything wrong.  

Rich,

 I agree that Adam Foster Collins' post is thoughtful.  Yet in the end I am afraid that he falls into the same trap as TomP.  

First, They look around the landscape, fail to see "Victorian Golf Course Architecture," so they assume it never existed.  

Second, they see the obvious similarities between the true linksland courses and the great inland courses, and assume that there was a natural, uninterrupted progression from the former to the latter.  

Third, they substitute their conventional wisdom for rigorous fact finding and research.  

I discuss each pitfall below.  
________________
As to their first faulty assumption,  there is evidence that Victorian Architecture existed.  Tom asked for written proof from the time period and I cited an American Golfer article describing the inland courses before Sunningdale as "Victorian," and praising Willie Park, Jr. for intentionally breaking this mold and designing something more natural and in touch with golf's roots-- the linksland.  

He was one of the first-- I think we might also agree that he was the first-- to perceive the possibilities of inland golf course construction on a finder, grander scale than we know now. . . . Up to then the manner of designing and making a hole was to put a plain straight bank across the course in fron to be driven over, this arrangement while a a little sand in front of it, being known as a bunker, and, if the hole were long enough there was a simialr contrivance setu up immediately in front of the putting green.  Generally nothing more was necessary. . . . None of these things were beautiful to look upon, they gave no character to the holes, this being supplied only by local natural features as trees, watercourses and ponts; they were not the least interesting, and they made most holes look very much like each other.  Nor did they tend to the smallest improvement in the game of the player.   This was Victorian golf architecture, the standard for which was set by that indefatigable master of it, Willie Dunn . . . .  Willie Park perceived that there would soon be a demand for something much better and he set himself to devise it, to give to inland course some of the attributes of those at the seaside where the holes were fashioned by Nature and abounded in features of strong character..  . . . This scheme marked the beginning of the new principles in course architecture that have since revolutionized the whole of inland golf not only in England, but in parts of the continent of Europe, all over the US, Canada, and everywhere. . . .
-- Henry Leach, 'Park and the Past,' The American Golfer, March 1917

For another example of an architect of the time discussing the "Victorian Age" of golf course architecture and how he and others broke away from it, see Alister MacKenzie's section on "Some Qualifications of a Golf Course Architect" and the subsequent sections in his Spirit of St. Andrews . . .

In the Victorian era 50 years ago, almost all new golf courses were planned by professionals, and were, incidentially, amazingly bad.  They were built up with mathematical precision, a cop bunker extending from the rough on the one side, to the rough on the other, and a similar cop bunker placed for the second shot.  There was an entire absence of strategy, interest and excitemjent except where some natural irremovable object intervened to prevent the designer carrying out his nefarious plans.  
. . .
In the early days, all artificially made inland courses were designed on similar stereotyped lines.
    -- Alister MacKenzie, Spirit of St. Andrews

These two passages at least raise the inference that
1)There was a Victorian Era of Golf Course Architecture, and 2) That what we call Classic Architecture is at least in part a rejection of that Victorian Era in favor of an emulation of the aesthetics of the true links courses.  

So, why dont we see more evidence of these Victorian Age Courses?   My theory is that most of them were replaced with what are usually referred to as Classic Era courses (TomM's Arts and Crafts courses.)  
____________________

Second, they assume that the similarities between linksland and the "Classic Era" inland course somehow undercuts TomM's premise.  

The Arts and Crafts Movement wasn't just a rejection of the Victorian Age and Industrialism, it was also an attempt to move toward an earlier time of a simpler and more natural aesthetic.   In the medium of Golf Course architecture, this would take the designers back to the early linksland courses, cut by mother nature and not the hand of man.  

While this seems progression seems obvious and preordained today, it apparantly wasnt to John Dunn and whichever other professionals were laying out their geometrical crossbunkers.  
_______________

Their third pitfall is substituting their conventional wisdom for rigorous fact finding and research), they are free to agree with him or not.  But they must acknowledge that Tom MacWood has done and is doing the research.   Those that disagree with him would do well to do the same.   At least, that is, if they want their counter-arguments to be convincing.

Tom

Thanks for the exposition.

As you probably know, my interest in this issue is peripheral and my comments meant to be helpful, based on the limited knowledge which I have.

The reason I seconded Adam's post was due to its use of facts, e.g. there were only 387 courses in Britain in 1890, which was at the end of the Victorian age, and inlcuded (probably) mostly courses in Scotland and the North and (possibly, as it was a part of the UK then) Ireland.  From Adam's facts, it is obvious that golf boomed from 1890 onwards, but also implies to me that there was probably very little golf of the "Victorian" style (as excoriated by Hutchinson) ever produced.  More likely, golf became popular around the turn of the last century, and the people with money and landturned to people who knew what golf wa sall about (e.g. Willie Park Jr.) and demanded courses that were as close to what golf was like in Scotland as possible.

As for Willie, you seem to think that he built crap courses in the late 1800's and then had some sort of Damascene conversion after he met the A&C people and then built Sunningdale and Huntercombe.  Where and what were those crap early courses of Wille?  Surely not Burnstisland, which I know and which hasn't changed much from when he was there.  Nor Murrayfield.  Nor the courses at Gullane.  C&W have him only credited or two course sin England prior to 1900, Silloth-on-Solway and South Herts.  Were they "Victorian" monstrosities?  I find it hard to think so.

From the evidence presented by you and others, there is no doubt that A&C was an important movement in the late 19th-early 20th century, but it was no more important, and quite possibly less important, than other movements--Impressionism, Imagism, Communism come immeidately to mind.  

Making the leap from the fact that A&C existed and Hutchison was influenced by it and wrote on golf for Country Life is still too flismy a connection for me.  Did Horace ever actually say or even imply that A&C (or even some its major proponents, e.g. Wm. Morris) was/were an influence on GCA?  I don't remember it.

Sure Hutchison dissed the truly crap architecture that was produced around London during the late 19th century golf boom, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he was offferring A&C as an alternative.  Also, I think that MacKenzie, in the Spirit of St. A. (BTW a very disappointing book, IMO) was just paraphrasing Hutchison, rather than offerring an original idea.

As TEP and myself have stated many times, what Hutchinson and Park Jr. were more probably offering as an alternative were the examples of great GCA that were ALREADY EXISTING, i.e. the great links courses of the North.  I believe that Willie knew them and "copied" them at Sunningdale and Huntercombe.  I doubt if he "copied" any of Wm. Morris' work any more than James Braid copied Charles Rennie Mackintosh....

And, Old Tom Morris built some GREAT golf courses and holes in the late 1800's.  To imply that your Golden Oldies somehow made silk purses out of the sow's ears of OTM and Park etc.'s efforts is just irresponsible and wrong.

Cheers

Rich

[T_MacWood]

David
I would agree with all those points, including the point about it being a social movement. the founders of the movement, and their most ardent followers, defintiely saw it as a social movement. But not everyone was comfortable (or agreed) with all the social aspects, and they only adopted or embraced the aesthetic principles.

Along those lines, in my opinion one of the most important contributors to the popularity of the movement, at least the aesthetics of the movement, was Country Life. It was the perfect vehicle. From architecture to gardening to houshold items (like furniture and tapestries) to art to golf architecture...there was single source for all the diverse design mediums. The magazine did not promote the A&C Movement directly, but it promoted a certain aesthetic and life style that blended with the movement.

What is also interesting, not only did Country Life write about and promote men like Park, Colt, Fowler, MacKenzie, Macdonald, Simpson etc...many of them also contributed their own articles on the subject. And there was crossover of interests...Hutchinson wrote about a multitude of subjects, Colt contributed an article on architecture, Fowler on gardening....and I believe, MacKenzie on trench warfare, one of the lesser known art forms of the A&C Movement.  

[T_MacWood]

Rich
What affect did Impressionism, Imagism, Communism have upon architecture, gardening or furniture design?


Richmond

Do you have any vintage pictures of any of the inland courses you mentioned?

[ForkaB]

Don't know--Tom, any more than I know (yet--hang in there, old bean!) what A&C had on golf course design.

[T_MacWood]

Rich
I am hanging in there...I'm encouraged we've finally got you to admit there is/was such a thing as golf architecture...you've come along way.

"Making the leap from the fact that A&C existed and Hutchison was influenced by it and wrote on golf for Country Life is still too flismy a connection for me.  Did Horace ever actually say or even imply that A&C (or even some its major proponents, e.g. Wm. Morris) was/were an influence on GCA?  I don't remember it."

To my knowledge no one in Country Life, be it architect, gardener, artist, craftsman, collector, golf architect, ever mentioned the A&C Movement as an influence. Should we conclude the movement never existed?

What did MacKenie say in the Spirit?

[ForkaB]

Tom

Missed your edit of your last post.  I have Burntisland's centennary book, but it doesn't have any pictures of the course.  As I've said before it just states that there have been few changes since Willie Jr. was there, and I believe the book, as I've seen the course.  I'm not sure if the Scot's were as self-centered as the English (or Americans) around the turn of the century--at least in terms of photgraphing their golf courses.

So what is your "Richmond" picture of and what is its significance, if any?

[ForkaB]

Rich
I am hanging in there...I'm encouraged we've finally got you to admit there is/was such a thing as golf architecture...you've come along way.

Tom

Shame on you.  I've always agreed that there is such as thing as GCA. I've just never (yet!) been convinced that it is an "art."

[TEPaul]

I was away all yesterday at the place of all golf places in my part of the world and returned to carefully read some very good posts and opinions---from both sides (yes and no) of the subject of---"Did the Arts and Crafts Movement really influence GCA?”

I thought Adam Foster Collins's points were excellent and very relevent. Kirk Gill made a great point about "labels" and critical analysis of art forms, movements, how and when they happen and why and by whom etc---particularly when he said “labels” are to inform not to exclude. Tom Doak made a particularly interesting post of his impressions of this question in how it may've affected the evolution of the art form of golf course architecture---in the past and influences and labels from the past as he understands them today, and on golf architecture being created today.

I think Kirk Gill said he’d never heard the label “Arts and Crafts golf architecture”, and the fact he hadn’t didn’t necessarily make it an irrelevant label for the era of golf architecture we often refer to as the “Golden Age of golf architecture”. That’s a very good point. But because it may be a new label and not necessarily an irrelevant label at this point does not automatically mean it’s a relevant label either. And that’s basically the point of the question of this thread. Probably the reason Kirk Gill has never heard the term or label “Arts and Crafts golf architecture” is because no one has ever labeled it that before. It seems Tom MacWood was the first one to do that.

Tom MacWood, when he wrote his five part essay on the “Arts and Crafts” movement that’s in the “In My Opinion” section of this website was looking to basically do a few things, in my opinion (although he certainly can and will give the real reasons he wrote it). First, to offer and in-depth chronicle of what the A/C movement was, where it emanated from and who its primary advocates and practitioners were. That he did very well, and certainly in-depth. And second, it seems he wrote that essay as a way of more descriptively labeling what we often refer to as “Golden Age" golf architecture. The reason he wanted to more descriptively label that golf architectural era must have been to more accurately identify and describe the most important or the primary influences on the architecture of that era that made it what it became and what it was.

That second part is what’s at issue to me. Tom MacWood is certainly correct that the label “Golden Age golf architecture” is not descriptive of the influences on that era of golf architecture. I don’t believe identifying and describing the primary influences on that golf architecture era was ever the intention of those who labeled that era of golf architecture “Golden Age” architecture. I think that label was more to simply describe what many feel was a particular and notable HIGH POINT in the evolution of golf architecture. Today, some, and certainly us on here, refer to that era as “Golden Age architecture” but what that term really is is nothing more than a morph of what it was originally described which was the Golden Age OF golf architecture, stress on the "OF"---eg a notable HIGH POINT---nothing really much more than that. The particular influences on that era was never the point of the term or the label. Frankly, that entire era in time of the 1920s and before the Crash was labeled as “The Golden Age”.

But because a more descriptive label of the influences on golf architecture throughout that era was never applied certainly does not mean the primary and most important influences on that era were never properly ascribed to that era. In my opinion, the most important influences on the golf architecture of that era certainly have been ascribed and assigned and written about for many, many decades. Those who took part in that era of architecture wrote about what the influences on them were voluminously and specifically. The entire literature of that time and afterwards in golf’s evolution is replete with what those primary influences were on that era of golf architecture. There are numerous really fine books on what those influences were---really hallmark books such as Hunter’s “The Links”, Thomas’s “Golf Architecture in America” and Mackenzie’s “The Spirit of St. Andrews”, not to mention the excellent “Scotland’s Gift Golf” and the fascinating articles of Behr on the influences on golf architecture of that time.

And what were the primary influences on the golf architecture of that era they all wrote about? Isn’t it obvious? It was the essence of linksland golf architecture as well as the golf architecture of the fascinating early Heathland architecture that took that essence and influence directly from the linksland and the best of the linksland architects of that time---primarily Willie Park Jr who has been mentioned over and over again by those involved in that time as the first really excellent practioner of the essences of the linksland outside the linksland.

This influence is mentioned over and over again by all those involved in that time. Do any of them ever say a single word about the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement on what they were doing? Not that I can see anywhere. And so, if they never did say a word about it---then is it really relevant to say today that the “Arts and Crafts” movement was, after all, the primary influence or the best way to describe the most important influences on so-called “Golden Age architecture”?

I, for one, don’t think so. Labels are fine, but to be descriptive they first have to be based in fact.

[T_MacWood]

Rich

"As TEP and myself have stated many times, what Hutchinson and Park Jr. were more probably offering as an alternative were the examples of great GCA that were ALREADY EXISTING, i.e. the great links courses of the North.  I believe that Willie knew them and "copied" them at Sunningdale and Huntercombe."

Was Willie copying them at Richmond..pictured above?

What are some of Old Tom's best inland designs and holes?

"Missed your edit of your last post.  I have Burntisland's centennary book, but it doesn't have any pictures of the course.  As I've said before it just states that there have been few changes since Willie Jr. was there, and I believe the book, as I've seen the course.  I'm not sure if the Scot's were as self-centered as the English (or Americans) around the turn of the century--at least in terms of photgraphing their golf courses.

So what is your "Richmond" picture of and what is its significance, if any?"

Richmond is typical of the Victorian style of golf course--geometric cross bunkers backed by a cop formation.

Its difficult to make your case about Willie's 1890's work without photograph documentation...especially when you admit your interest in the golf architecture is 'peripheral' and your knowledge somewhat limited..

TE
"Those who took part in that era of architecture wrote about what the influences on them were voluminously and specifically. The entire literature of that time and afterwards in golf’s evolution is replete with what those primary influences were on that era of golf architecture. There are numerous really fine books on what those influences were---really hallmark books such as Hunter’s “The Links”, Thomas’s “Golf Architecture in America” and Mackenzie’s “The Spirit of St. Andrews”, not to mention the excellent “Scotland’s Gift Golf” and the fascinating articles of Behr on the influences on golf architecture of that time."

Those involved in the different art forms of the A&C Movement wrote volumes about their influences as well. It was the vernacular tradition that evolved naturally in each given local....another common link.

[ForkaB]

Rich
You have been anti-architecture from the moment you stepped on this website

WRONG.  YOU JUST HAVE NOT BEEN READING WHAT I SAID CAREFULLY ENOUGH.

"As TEP and myself have stated many times, what Hutchinson and Park Jr. were more probably offering as an alternative were the examples of great GCA that were ALREADY EXISTING, i.e. the great links courses of the North.  I believe that Willie knew them and "copied" them at Sunningdale and Huntercombe."

Was Willie copying them at Richmond..pictured above?

THIS IS AN IRELEVANT COMMENT

What are some of Old Tom's best inland designs and holes?

I NEVER SAID ANYTHING ABOUT OTM'S INLAND COURSES AND HOLES.  I DON'T KNOW THEM WELL ENOUGH TO KNOW WHAT HE DID AND DIDN'T DO AT THEM.  HOWEVER, IF HE WHAT HE DID DO AT ALTYH, ROYAL BURGRESS, STIRLING, ETC. IS STILL THERE, IT IS PRETTY GOOD STUFF.  NOT AT ALL "UNNATURAL" OR "GEOMETRIC" OR EVEN "VICTORIAN" (EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE BUILT DURING VR'S REIGN).....

"Missed your edit of your last post.  I have Burntisland's centennary book, but it doesn't have any pictures of the course.  As I've said before it just states that there have been few changes since Willie Jr. was there, and I believe the book, as I've seen the course.  I'm not sure if the Scot's were as self-centered as the English (or Americans) around the turn of the century--at least in terms of photgraphing their golf courses.

So what is your "Richmond" picture of and what is its significance, if any?"

Richmond is typical of the Victorian style of golf course--geometric cross bunkers backed by a cop formation.

VERY HARD TO SEE FROM THAT PICTURE, BUT I'LL TAKE YOUR WORD FOR IT.  BUT, EVEN IF SO WHAT?

Its difficult to make your case about Willie's 1890's work without photograph documentation...especially when you admit your interest in the golf architecture is 'peripheral' and your knowledge somewhat limited..

TOM

PLEASE READ WHAT I WRITE MORE CAREFULLY.  I NEVER SAID MY INTEREST IN GCA WAS "PERIPHERAL" I SAID RATHER, AND QUITE CLEARLY, THAT MY INTEREST IN THIS ISSUE (I.E. THE INFLUENCE OF A&C ON GCA WAS PERIPHERAL).  THERE IS A BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THOSE TWO STATEMENTS.

TE
"Those who took part in that era of architecture wrote about what the influences on them were voluminously and specifically. The entire literature of that time and afterwards in golf’s evolution is replete with what those primary influences were on that era of golf architecture. There are numerous really fine books on what those influences were---really hallmark books such as Hunter’s “The Links”, Thomas’s “Golf Architecture in America” and Mackenzie’s “The Spirit of St. Andrews”, not to mention the excellent “Scotland’s Gift Golf” and the fascinating articles of Behr on the influences on golf architecture of that time."

Those involved in the different art forms of the A&C Movement wrote volumes about their influences as well. It was the vernacular tradition that evolved naturally in each given local....another common link.

Sorry for the CAPS in the text, but I can't do the Mucciesque color differences.... .  

Now, have a nice day

[T_MacWood]

Rich
"WRONG.  YOU JUST HAVE NOT BEEN READING WHAT I SAID CAREFULLY ENOUGH."

Don’t worry I’ve been reading what you’ve been writing—when it comes to golf architecture, and in particular golden age golf architecture, I would characterize your attitude as flat worldish.

"THIS IS AN IRELEVANT COMMENT"

The Richmond question is relevant because you have in the past speculated (alternatively argued) that Willie Park II was not designing Victorian era stuff in the 1890’s, and now that Willie Park II was offering as an alternative, examples of existing gca (I presume the old natural links) at Sunningdale and Huntercombe.

Are you now acknowledging that Sunningdale and Huntercombe were in fact landmark designs (recognized as such in England by H.Hutchinson and in Scotland by Garden Smith, to name two prominent examples) and that the inland golf courses of the 1890’s left a lot to be desired (including WP II’s)?

"I NEVER SAID ANYTHING ABOUT OTM'S INLAND COURSES AND HOLES.  I DON'T KNOW THEM WELL ENOUGH TO KNOW WHAT HE DID AND DIDN'T DO AT THEM."

On a thread dealing with A&C golf architecture, Victorian era golf architecture (and OTM’s inclusion in this category) and the influences on the reform of inland golf design at the turn of the century, you said “And, Old Tom Morris built some GREAT golf courses and holes in the late 1800's.”

I was interested in what were some of his better inland designs.

"HOWEVER, IF HE WHAT HE DID DO AT ALTYH, ROYAL BURGRESS, STIRLING, ETC. IS STILL THERE, IT IS PRETTY GOOD STUFF.  NOT AT ALL "UNNATURAL" OR "GEOMETRIC" OR EVEN "VICTORIAN" (EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE BUILT DURING VR'S REIGN)....."

Are there any Victorian courses that survived to this day in that form? I don’t think so. Which brings up interesting question, what are some of Old Tom’s best preserved designs?

"VERY HARD TO SEE FROM THAT PICTURE, BUT I'LL TAKE YOUR WORD FOR IT.  BUT, EVEN IF SO WHAT?"

Again it goes back to your theory that WP II was not designing Victorian type courses in 1890’s.