Dave Moriarty asked;
"Tom Paul, are you suggesting that TomM's assertion (and that of so many of the commentators of the time) is wrong? If so, what is your basis for challenging them?'"
Dave:
Am I suggesting TomM's assertion is wrong about what? Wrong that a style or type of architecture referred to as "Victorian" architecture or the "Dark Ages" is wrong or that it didn’t exist? Of course not---I never said anything remotely like that on this thread or anywhere else---ever. Of course it existed.
All I've suggested is that TomM’s suggestion and conclusion in his five part Arts and Crafts Movement essay that the A/C movement was such a primary influence on the "Golden Age of golf architecture" that that era should be relabeled "arts and crafts" architecture. I say that because it's quite obvious to me that the best of the linksland and heathland architecture was the primary influence on the Golden Age of golf architecture. However, even if the linksland model was the primary influence on the heathland architecture, the question becomes what was it that made golf architecture turn back and look to the linksland model around 1899 when Park designed and built the credited breakthrough courses in the heathlands of Sunningdale and Huntercombe that are credited as the courses that began the great heathland era of architecture and apparently set golf architecture on a path of quality and sophistication that eventually concluded in what we refer to as the “Golden Age” of golf architecture?
Clearly, Tom MacWood credits the turn back to the linksland model in the heathlands around 1899 to what’s generally called the “Arts and Crafts” Movement. I’m not prepared to endorse that suggestion and conclusion, at least not to the extent the healthland era and the later Golden Age should be seen as primarily influenced by the “Arts and Crafts” movement, even if, as Tom MacWood suggests that movement was some prevalent reactionary undercurrent to the age of Victorianism. I believe the breakthrough architecture of Sunningdale and Huntercombe was more logically influenced by other things and for other reasons---eg Park Jr, the discovery of the heathlands, more money available to construct there and more time to build those courses both of which were likely the primary reasons real break-through quality architecture was created there.
"As an aside, maybe you can shed some light on what was going on in America. How would you describe the golf architecture in your Philadelphia area on the cusp of the 20th century, say 1899? How does the 1899 golf architecture compare to that of a few decades later?"
Golf architecture in Philadelphia pre-1900 was very rudimentary and simple as well. This is some of what directly motivated Crump and Wilson to build PVGC and Merion East and West and for Tillinghast to remark in writing that golf architecture needed to upgrade and also to move to new sites in and around Philadelphia, not the least reason being many of those simple and rudimentary early courses were too near the city and were bound not to survive anyway. The same was true for many of those early courses around NYC.
But, as he usually does these days Adam Foster Collins made a very good point in post #12. He's basically suggesting what may have caused that early architecture of that time (Victorian, Dark Age, Industrial, Geometric) to be the way it was may’ve had to do with some other influences and some very primary ones that had little to do directly with the “Arts and Crafts” movement. I agree with Adam on that.
Not the least reason being here you are trying to not only define what the “Victorian/DarkAge/Industrial/Geometric style of architecture actually was and looked like as types and styles (which I think you did quite well, BTW) but also that you and TomM seems to be suggesting that the primary influence of those early crude, simple, penal and rudimentary courses was a direct result and influence of the overall aesthetic or even ethos of the Victorian Age itself----whatever that was!
I’m not prepared to make that massive leap of logic but apparently you and TomM are. Like Adam Collins, I feel the reasons for that early pre-heathland era were likely the result of many other independent things that were not the result of some Victorian “Style” or "artistic aesthetic". Those other reasons could just as well have been cheap and simple early golf courses on relatively poor sites and soil that were a result of the fact that England and the English were simply not sophisticated in the slightest about golf or architecture at that time known as the “Dark Ages” of golf architecture in England between about 1850 and 1900. They probably got all they expected in those simple rudimentary courses at that time even if it was from “professional” golfers or from the early linksmen of that time (the Dunns, Old Tom Morris or even Park jr).
Tom MacWood said in his essay that “Golden Age” is not a very descriptive term about the actual type and style of architecture (quality) of that time or what its actual architectural influences were. I believe he’s absolutely right about that----it’s not a very descriptive term other than to probably identify the over-all time in which it occurred which many called the Golden Age. Why did many call that entire age the “Golden Age”? Probably because that term generally connotes a “high point” (in many things) that most consider the post WW1 era that lasted up to the depression to be. For the same reason, although many to most architects and writers who have referred to “Victorian” golf architecture may simple be describing a type and style of golf architecture that existed in and during the entire age known as the “Victorian Age”. It simply defines a time-span and perhaps not necessarily that the ethos of that time or even some artistic aesthetic of that time was a primary influence on the golf architecture of that age. Was the straight-laced ethos of Victoriana primarily responsible for influencing those rudimentary and crude golf courses in England in the so-called “Dark Ages”? Like Adam Collins, I feel it may’ve been more than that and perhaps even much more simple to understand such as the fact that this was a time when golf and architecture first migrated out of its centuries old home in the linkslnd and it was just bound to be crude to start with because that was all most of the English who were at that point unsophisticated about the game and its linksland architecture knew to expect.
Tom MacWood asked Adam in post #13;
“Adam
How do you separate any design from the artistic and aesthetic of the time?”
One thing you do is compare and contrast the two things you’re looking at which in this case is that early, rudimentary and crude golf architecture in the so-called “Dark Ages” in England against the larger artistic aesthetic of the time----if in fact there was some one-dimensional artistic aesthetic of that time---which frankly I very much doubt----and then you compare and also contrast to determine if that artistic aesthetic was of some primary influence on the style of golf architecture of that time or whether perhaps that style was the result of something else such as the fact that golf and golf architecture in England was simply in its total infancy in England then and no one really knew to expect more than crude, rudimentary symmetrical simplicity.
As Max Behr very cogently explained it was probably not much more back then than the “game mind of man” of the English of that time. Behr explained that “Man” tends to define things---eg time and space with straight lines and symmetry in many of the games he plays. He’s inherently inclined to do that as a “Man”. Why does he do that in games? Simply to better define space (and time) to isolate the test of “skill” of one player against another (as in tennis). What the English of that early era in golf as it first migrated from the linksland probably forgot or perhaps never knew (as Behr explained well) is there is another opponent about the game of golf---eg Nature and her inherent randomness which if anything is not necessarily symmetrical and defined!
As Behr said;
“But to transport it he had to commit a sacrilege---he had to analyze it (the game), tear it to pieces the more easily to pack it in his mind. And, in so doing, he did not realize that what he carried away with him was the letter only (symmetrical and mathematical definition), and that he left behind something intangible, that property of unsullied nature, innocent beauty undefiled as yet by the hand of man.”
The English did not come to understand that “intangible” of the linksland until they eventually came to expect more perhaps 20 years hence when the heathlands (a virtual soil structure like the linksland) was discovered in and around the end of the 1890s. Enter Willie Park Jr, a talented linksman golf architect who this time had the sites as well as the time and the money to finally do better. That’s what he did and the first quality golf architecture in the English heathslands was done and became, along with the linksland model that inland it was similar to----and the first great golf architecture of inland golf was done and became the starting point and primary influence on inland golf architecture all over the world to eventually follow.