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Phil Benedict

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Is 'Genius' possible in GCA
« on: March 14, 2015, 07:45:49 PM »
I just watched a movie about the English painter JMW Turner.  He wasn't a particularly appealing guy but he was unquestionably a 'genius'?  He saw light differently than anyone before him, revolutioniizing landscape and seascape painting.

Isn't GCA too constrained for anybody to do something revolutionary?

John Kavanaugh

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Re: Is 'Genius' possible in GCA
« Reply #1 on: March 14, 2015, 07:58:11 PM »
You can't be serious.

Mike_Young

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Is 'Genius' possible in GCA
« Reply #2 on: March 14, 2015, 08:08:58 PM »
I have an "IN MY OPINION" article titled " the architect as genius"....hmmmmm....
"just standing on a corner in Winslow Arizona"

Phil Benedict

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Is 'Genius' possible in GCA
« Reply #3 on: March 14, 2015, 08:40:39 PM »
You can't be serious.

Actually I am.  I don't think there's enough leeway in GCA for 'genius' as I understand it.
« Last Edit: March 14, 2015, 09:10:31 PM by Phil Benedict »

Peter Pallotta

Re: Is 'Genius' possible in GCA
« Reply #4 on: March 14, 2015, 09:04:06 PM »
Phil - I know of at least one top architect who would certainly say that gca is too collaborative an art-craft for the term genius to be bandied about or applied to anyone in particular. He may be right about that, but in the context of your example I wonder if a few architects at least haven't had a 'way of seeing' and a capacity to interpret landforms that set them apart.
Peter
« Last Edit: March 14, 2015, 09:07:01 PM by PPallotta »

Mike_Young

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Is 'Genius' possible in GCA
« Reply #5 on: March 14, 2015, 09:05:54 PM »
IMHO the genius in golf design is in elements that one would never know were genius.... ;D
"just standing on a corner in Winslow Arizona"

Peter Pallotta

Re: Is 'Genius' possible in GCA
« Reply #6 on: March 14, 2015, 09:13:37 PM »
Mike -- just fyi, I think you should stop using the "IMHO" in your posts. First, because you probably have no legitimate reason to be humble when it comes to gca. More importantly, humility tends to have a very detrimental affect on genuises ;D

Peter

John Kavanaugh

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Is 'Genius' possible in GCA
« Reply #7 on: March 14, 2015, 09:24:02 PM »
What are the constraints that you say are put on the architect? Just name three.

John Kavanaugh

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Is 'Genius' possible in GCA
« Reply #8 on: March 14, 2015, 09:38:48 PM »
TOC doesn't have 18 greens, Ballyneal doesn't have any tees and Cabot Cliffs has six par 5's.  Maybe what I see as genius are just mistakes.

Mike_Young

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Is 'Genius' possible in GCA
« Reply #9 on: March 14, 2015, 09:41:31 PM »
Mike -- just fyi, I think you should stop using the "IMHO" in your posts. First, because you probably have no legitimate reason to be humble when it comes to gca. More importantly, humility tends to have a very detrimental affect on genuises ;D

Peter

Peter, I just thought it sounded better then the Southern verison which is " this opinion is worth what you pay for it" ;D
"just standing on a corner in Winslow Arizona"

Ian Andrew

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Is 'Genius' possible in GCA
« Reply #10 on: March 15, 2015, 01:29:04 PM »
Genius: "an exceptional natural capacity of intellect, especially as shown in creative and original work in science, art, music, etc."

Revolutionary: "radically new or innovative; outside or beyond established procedure, principles, etc."


You asked two questions and in my opinion you get two different answers.

In the world of painting:

1. Strictly visual medium
2. Constrained or controlled by edges of the frame
3. Fairly inexpensive to produce
4. Limitless in subject matter

There is a greater freedom to do something "revolutionary" with the medium.
It's a medium of complete self expression
There does not have to be rules.


Contrast that to golf architecture:

1. Expansive canvass that is not even limited by the property boundary
2. three dimensions, I would argue that its actually four dimensional (time)
3. a medium to be experienced with multiple senses
4. very expensive and time consuming to produce
5. limitations on how far you can go because of end user (in context of revolutionary change)

It's impacted a great deal by the end user.
Self expression is not limited to creator of the design, but is something the player controls
Golf comes with requirements for play (rules can be argued)

So I don't see how outside the origins of golf design, how potentially revolutionary we can be...
I look at Sheep Ranch as unique, but below that ability to create on the fly and self express, we still find the basics of golf design.

So NO unless the term revolutionary is allowed to describe small but meaningful advancements.


As for genius, I think we have seen many and will see many more.

Turner did not live in vacuum.
He traveled and saw other artists work, just like architects/artists do today.
He found a way to express what he saw and what he felt, which artists and architects want to do too.

When art moves you, you pay attention to the artist and their work.
If they can do it over and over again with different subject matter, that's when begin to consider the word genius.


I like the questions and the complexity they bring.
That's my take from dirt...
"Appreciate the constructive; ignore the destructive." -- John Douglas

Patrick_Mucci

Re: Is 'Genius' possible in GCA
« Reply #11 on: March 15, 2015, 02:02:17 PM »
I just watched a movie about the English painter JMW Turner.  He wasn't a particularly appealing guy but he was unquestionably a 'genius'?  He saw light differently than anyone before him, revolutioniizing landscape and seascape painting.

Isn't GCA too constrained for anybody to do something revolutionary?

Venture out to Southhampton on Rt 27, make a left on Shrubland Road, take another left at Sebonic Neck Rd.
When you come to a huge stone gate, make a left.

You'll find acres and acres of pure genius.


David_Tepper

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Is 'Genius' possible in GCA
« Reply #12 on: March 15, 2015, 02:12:50 PM »
"I just watched a movie about the English painter JMW Turner.  He wasn't a particularly appealing guy but he was unquestionably a 'genius'?"

Phil B. -

Don't make the mistake of confusing art with the artist. Picasso wasn't a "particularly appealing guy" either. Neither was Miles Davis.

DT  

Jeff_Brauer

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Is 'Genius' possible in GCA
« Reply #13 on: March 15, 2015, 05:51:34 PM »
Discussed this with my wife on the drive back from the SXSW film fest in Austin the weekend.

Not quite on topic, but closely related as we discussed creativity.  While she saw it as out of the box thinking, I (as at least a somewhat creative person) started explaining my views in a bit more detail.

In short, I think there are straight line thinkers who see one route, or maybe a few, from A to point Z.

A creative person sees a lot (as Ian mentions) and starts rolling through hundreds or thousands of options mentally, looking for ways an existing idea fits a new situation, by taking an old idea from somewhere else, but either twisting it or adding one new thing necessitated by current circumstance to make it a new idea.

In golf, it might be seeing the basic qualities of a green site, thinking of other greens that would basically fit that well (such as narrow greens on a narrow site) and then adapting that, tweaking it, whatever to this new situation.

Thinking of Copperhead, since it was played last week, Packard saw rounded tees, and even more stylistic bunkers shapes, and came away with stylized free form tee shapes, which was pretty radical thinking.

Somewhere back in time, Mac and others took the natural shapes of sand blow outs and stylized them into more formal bunkers required.

The list goes on, but again, I think creativity is the thought process of examining far more options than most folks would consider, seeing certain relationships (sort of how like Warrant Buffet "sees" how to make money, and putting them together.

So many here think there is "one best" routing for every site, which I doubt, but I don't doubt that if you see a great routing, on a tough site, that there are 10-25 discarded preliminary routings to get there.  So, maybe that old "perspiration is 90% of inspiration" saying is true.

BTW, Mike Young is right.  Some of my most ingenious ideas were technical, and nothing you guys would probably mention here.  Most recent was at La Costa, where the water veered away from the natural swale across the fw, etc.  Joe Lee had built a green in the drainage flow.  The creative idea was to put a grass bunker left of the green (which Lee never used) which doubled as a flood overflow channel to keep the fw dry.

20 years ago in Myrtle Beach, on a flat site, I put a lake in the low point, not particularly creative, and had in the past connected 2 lakes with deep lines to make them essentially work as one.  But, I had never connected a whole series of lakes, but figured is should work, and thus connected the entire string of lakes at that low elevation.  That allowed me to build fairways near grade, whereas the other courses spent 200K of their 300-400K earthmoving quantity simply raising fairways.  So, I turned an earthmoving/drainage problem into a budget saving design opportunity.

In many ways, I don't think you can teach creativity.  Back in landscape school, we started with 50 students, and 12 graduated.  Those who didn't really have the passion and personality for design dropped out.  Most had been taught the basics and went from not drawing well to nice, but not inspired drawings and designs.  Of the 12 that finished, there was a definite ranking of hot shots and lesser talents.  In the end, 10 of us are running our own design firms, and two are park directors or related jobs, and those were the two we all knew were least creative.

I will go back and read MY "Architects as Genius" piece.  I suspect we will be more in line in our thinking than not.
Jeff Brauer, ASGCA Director of Outreach