Architects who regularly visit the courses of others?

[Peter Pallotta]

TE - thanks.

If up to and including Macdonald what earlier architects were learning from their visits to the great links courses was primarily about function, at what point did that change?

What I mean is, at what point did the pilgrimages become about form and aesthetics as much as about function?

Can we pinpoint one (or the first) architect who described his learning/study of the great links courses in those terms?

Thanks
Peter

[TEPaul]

"Can we pinpoint one (or the first) architect who described his learning/study of the great links courses in those terms?"


Sure, I guess we could do that. God knows we've tried on here to do that. It's obviously not that easy because a transition like that was not exactly documented back then for us to consider today.

But I think you know my own feelings on it because I sure have put them on here in the past.

I think what happened to bring golf course architecture to the point of beginning to consider the look and function of particularly naturalism in the art and science basically happened with the first good INLAND courses in the Heathlands. That was right around the end of the 1890s and the beginning of the 1900s.

Willie Park Jr is often given the credit for that with the likes of Sunningdale and Huntercombe.

Why did it first happen then and there?

There are all kinds of different opinions on that. I certainly have my own opinions on what happened and why in that place at that time and people like Tom MacWood has his own opinions that are contained in that Arts and Craft series he did.

As you know I don't subscribe to his notions on the degree of the significance of the Arts and Crafts movement on the quality and naturalism of architecture to come but it was certainly one of a number of factors.

But I think one thing is pretty clear, and that is when they got to that time and place in the heathlands, they certainly did look back to the naturalism contained in linksland courses and for the first time INLAND they began to realize they could imitate it a whole lot better in what they would actually make if they just took the time and thought to do that.

I just don't think TOC itself can ever be overestimated in its importance when that time in architecture finally came in the heathlands outside London England.

Another factor I know you know I put a whole lot of stock in is the significance of the soil and its makeup of the heathlands and what that meant to the agronomics in golf  architecture and golf to come compared to the inland courses and the golf that preceded it.

When they first stripped the heather and gorse off those first good inland sites in the heathland----BOOM, what did they find underneath for the first time INLAND but a soil makeup remarkably like the Scottish linksland!!

I just don't think that fact and happenstance and the importance of it, what it was and what it meant to the future of architecture and golf can ever be overestimated either!

[Peter Pallotta]

TE - thanks much; that's a post that I'm saving.

To make a small point that gets back to the original thread, I'd suggest that seeing other people's work is less important for the modern day architect than it was in the past, and that it may in fact be counterproductive after an initial and youthful learning phase.  

That is, once the learning process stops focussing on function and starts focussing of form/aesthetics, I'd rather see an experienced architect bring his own style/aesthetic to fruition based on his own vision than to have him cherry-picking the most pleasing (or most popular) aesthetic features from a grab bag of other architects' work.

That latter approach just leads to a mish-mash of a look that's ever more divorced from the natural features of a given/particular site, and to the making not of a Big World of golf course architecture but to an homogenous one. (Just like shopping malls and suburbs now look exactly alike no matter where you go in North America.)

I think it's a very interesting the point that Tom D made about the possibility of a mature architect learning/being inspired more from natural landforms than from other people's work.

Peter    

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