Architectural Collaborations

[Matt_Ward]

Last night I watched with great interest the PBS airing on "Frontline" of 'Sacred Ground,' the informative report on the process to rebuild the site of the former World Trade Center with a proposed new Freedom Tower.

In the program there was much discussion on the collaboration between the two main designers -- David Childs (chosen by real estate developer Larry Silverstein -- the man with the lease on the Twin Towers) and Daniel Libeskind -- the man chosen by a select panel for his winning design submission.

The program highlighted the following ...

"The collaboration between David Childs and Daniel Libeskind was a difficult one, not only because both men are architectural superstars accustomed to being in charge of their own projects, but because they approach architecture from two very different perspectives. Where Childs speaks in terms of engineering and a building's physical and structural connection to its surroundings, Libeskind likes to use analogies, relating his buildings to their environment through a complex web of symbolism. Architecture critic Paul Goldberger wrote in his book Up from Zero that Childs started work on the Freedom Tower, believing that "the design of a skyscraper begins with its structure, not a pictorial ideal"; while Daniel Libeskind's design "began not with a structural idea but with a visual goal, to create an abstract form that would suggest the profile of the Statue of Liberty."

My point here is that while collaboration can be thought of as a wonderful thing -- combining two great minds -- the reality is that the end result can be mistrust and a watering down of what is originally presented by each person individually. Ultimately, this is what occurred with the new Freedom Tower, according to the program. The program details all the players and the moves / countermoves that went into the varied relationships.

How does this relate to golf?

Well, I am wondering how such projects -- the Sebonack one particularly -- will fare when you have two completely different thinking and creative types with Tom Doak and Jack Nicklaus involved and their respective design teams. I was at the press conference (this past June) and such events while they paint a "happy" face and a team mentality -- there are a whole range of permutations involved that are clearly operating behind the scenes.

'Sacred Ground' covered much of the dynamics of the key people involved. While I am not suggesting the Doak / Nicklaus relationship will fall to that level I have to wonder if collaborations of two unique personalities can really produce the kind of winning result that ultimately might have been produced by simply having just one person involved from the get-go?

[RJ_Daley]

Matt, it is a very interesting question you pose on collaborations, but it can't be answered as a singular proposition.  Collaborations depend on the collaborators.  There have been many collaborations in all fields, including GCA that work, and those that don't.  Some work for a while, then fall apart.  

Langford and Morreau.  CB and Raynor-Banks. Colt and Allison. MacKenzie and Maxwell, or Russell.  Weiskopf and Morrish, Killian and Nuggent, Muirhead and Nicklaus, Dye and Nicklaus, Procter and Gamble errr I mean Axeland...

Some collaborations worked, some not...

Doak-Nicklaus?  Did you say both were different thinking and creative types?  I'll buy into the different thinking, but creative?  One yes, one employees creative types, but ...

[Matt_Ward]

RJ:

Don't sell the Nicklaus "team" short. Jack has certainly evolved in his thinking on golf course development -- unfortunastely, some people cling to the belief of Jack as Carnac and have not played a number of his more recent efforts. A few of which are indeed stellar -- please see Outlaw at Desert Mountain in Scottsdale, as but one example.

One other thing -- a few of the collaborations you
mentioned -- if my memory is correct -- are ones in which one of the individuals likely worked for the person in question in a master / apprentice role. Therefore, their familiarity and understanding of design was not that totally different.

The program on Frontline highlights the two unique and divergent backgrounds / understandings of the two men involved with the Freedom Tower. They are VERY different in their approach and styles. It would be akin to having Mackenzie work in collaboration say with Robert Trent Jones.  

[TEPaul]

I think some of the old fashioned real collaborative efforts of the past that produced such wonderful results the pinnacle being perhaps PVGC are sort of a thing of the past. The thing that made some of those collaborations possible is the central characters that inspired it all were generally amateurs, not professional architects.

Once you get into professionals in architecture how they get paid becomes the issue. If professional architects collaborate today generally they do it as friends the way some have slightly and recently who I won't name because they wouldn't like it to be mentioned.

Something like Sebonac should be interesting to see. A collaboration like Nicklaus and Doak was obviously teed up by the Sebonac principle, Pascusso (sp?). He probably did it because he either didn't want to make a choice between them or couldn't figure out how to. I don't see Tom and Jack collaborating architecturally as only friends with zero remuneration. Obviously Pascusso had to pay more for the two of them than he would have for one but heh, with a project that expensive and land that expensive what's a few million more anyway?

A more interesting collaboration scenario may be someone like Bill and Ben with someone else. If some client tried to get them to formally collaborate even with one of their close friends in the business, like a Gil Hanse, I bet they'd never agree. But they just might get together anyway on just a friendly and non remunerative level and collaborate anyway as good friends sometimes do. When you think about it how selfless, sensible and cool is that?

The latter was basically the unique theme and essence of the original "Phladelphia School of Architecture", probably made possible by the fact they were all friends anyway and 4 out of the 6 of them were livelong amateur architects anyway, and so were some of their friends from elsewhere such as Macdonald and Whigam.

[Jeff_Mingay]

While we were building Blackhawk GC in Edmonton, Dave Axland and James Duncan we on-site for an extended period of time to collaborate with their friend, Rod Whitman.

I think Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw probably benefit most from such "collaborations" these days. Their usual crew, including Dave and James, and sometimes Rod, is made up of a bunch of talented, experienced guys who collaborate.

Doak's situation is probably similar to Coore's now. He has an equally talented, regular crew.  

[T_MacWood]

I've seen that Frontline special on TV...that appears to be a total fiasco.

A similar odd couple collaboration occured at Princes after WWII. Guy Campbell was in charge of designing 13 holes and John Morrison 14 holes. Despite working independently, evidently the course turned out well, both men appeared to be pleased with the results. I have my doubts that will be the case with the Freedom Tower.

[RJ_Daley]

Where Matt has used the word collaboration, I have often spoken in terms of "cross-pollenization" along the lines Jeff Mingay describes of the interworkings of the "boys" between Coore and Crenshaw, Doak, Hanse, teams and the players, Whitman, Axeland, Proctor, Bradley, Drella, Schneider, Duncan, and who all I am leaving out...

Sure the main designer archies names are on the project result, but I think a lot of detail and last minute designing happens from the seat of a machine being operated by a clever fellow, or from the operation of a Tennessee back hoe with some sweat from the brow of that worker.  How many of the fine but unique details that you notice in a course design or specific features are the result of one of these construction-collaborators using a bit more creativity than was on the original plan drawing?  Collaboration and cross pollenization happens in the field between motivated people that want to create and get something done right.  There are collaborations on paper for marketing and credibility sake, and collaborations to get something truly great done on the ground.

[Tom_Doak]

Matt:

The main problem with collaborating on such a high-profile project is dealing with all of the people who are looking to find a story and create "controversy."  [At long last, I know what it is like to play for the Yankees!]

There have been a LOT of successful golf course design collaborations in the past ... RJ neglected to mention Neville and Grant, or Coore and Crenshaw.  In every case, both men brought a bunch to the table, and recognized that the other man did, too.

In the end, who did what is really of no concern to anyone but the gossipy.  What matters is that the golf course turns out as good as it possibly can.  I don't see how you can start evaluating that before we have shaped a single hole -- I can't.  

It's inevitable that there will be some points at which Jack and I disagree on what's the best way to do things, and we'll have to work those out when we get to them.  It will be much easier to do if we are operating on a friendly basis, and aren't worrying about how someone else will divide up the credit.

Sure, Jack and I have different perspectives on design ... if we had the same perspective then Michael Pascucci wouldn't have wanted to hire both of us.  But I don't think that our perspectives on design are mutually exclusive.  In fact, I think the opposite ... that if the project embodies both our viewpoints on golf, it will be hard to match.

Or to look at it another way, I can name a lot of golf courses that were the result of a successful collaboration.  How many can anyone name that were unsuccessful collaborations?

[Matt_Ward]

Tom D:

I'm not making any points regarding the collaboration you are doing with Nicklaus. I am merely stating how such a prolific project like the Freedom Tower in NYC was handled when two very much different personalities got involved. Clearly, the parties involved in that situation had very deep and different perspectives on what should be done.

I am very much interested in the final product because at the end of the day it's the proof of the pudding that really counts -- not the mechanics / interactions that came before it.

Still Tom -- it's interesting to note who was the "first among equals" on certain architectural elements and how "compromises" of any major type are handled from a design history of the participants involved. Clearly, the owner makes the final call but let's not play down the reality that all architects -- golf ones as well -- have egos -- some quite large ones at times.

[Tripp_Davis]

Very rarely is any decision made without some form of collaboration.  The design and construction of a golf course involves thousands of decisions.  As a golf architect, you are collaborating with everyone from your Client, to Project Engineers, to Environmental Groups, to your Staff, to the Shapers, to the Finish Crew, to the Superintendent, and those who will manage the course.  Every golf course is a collaboration.  How willing everyone is to work together to build the best golf course possible is what the issue really is.  While the "visible egos" can seem to be where a problem might lie, anyone good at what they do has some ego in what will be created or what they are a part of.  

We are just starting a design in Colorado on the Colorado River with Justin Leonard, a successful New York real estate developer and Orvis (the Fly Fishing Company).  There will be plenty of input with everyone having a lot of very good ideas.  The golf architect largely becomes a moderator/sponge.  The best golf architects are very capable of establishing a raport and setting aside their egos and letting the ideas flow - accepting good input.  

Does there have to be someone to have ultimate control?  Establishing a vision is what the collaboration is all about and ultimately the vision should be in control.  If there is a conflict as to what the vision is, there was never a collaboration in the first place.  
   

[TEPaul]

Maybe my definition of collaboration is way off base but I definitely don't look at a collaboration in golf architecture as something like Coore and Crenshaw, Toomey and Flynn, MacDonald & Raynor, Weiskopf and Moorish, Cornish, Silva and Mungeam. I look at arrangements like that as partnerships.

Nicklaus and Doak are not a partnership, they're collaborating on a single project. PVGC had a ton of amateur and professional architects who had no partnership arrangement whatsoever--they just all happend to get together and collaborate on PVGC's slow evolutionary creation. But in the end it was always the editor of the entire project, Crump, who called all the shots and always had the final say, no matter whose ideas he might have used. That to me was the architectural collaboration of all time and look what resulted!

[Gerry B]

and we must not forget the team of George and Tom Fazio -(like what they came up with at my home club) and add Thomas and Bell to to the list. Must also include Charles Banks in a supporting role to the MacDonald / Raynor legacy.

[Philip Gawith]

from a marketing perspective, collaborations (in any field) are normally thought a good thing because, so the reasoning goes, you get the best of both talents - a multiplication of excellence. i am not sure about golf but, to take a left field example, of music - it is just about an iron rule that if you put two great musicians together to collaborate, the result is horrible - not a multiplication of talents, but a division. if you put two great chefs in the kitchen, would you really expect them to produce better results than on their own? two novelists collaborating to produce a better book? i would not. that said, i wish messrs doak and nicklaus all the best. maybe golf is different - but it is a pretty heroic leap of faith to assume you end up with the best of both worlds.

[frank_D]

How does this relate to golf?

I have to wonder if collaborations of two unique personalities can really produce the kind of winning result that ultimately might have been produced by simply having just one person involved from the get-go?

brother Matt_Ward

same as it relates to anything else - when people with gigantic egos are involved AND they act like "assholes" (it was bleeped from the program but i read his lips) the proverbial CAMEL or compromise is produced

these genius architects are like idiot savants - they know every bolt in the project but have NO socially redeming people skills - including recognizing the people they should be listing to as to the REASON for the project they are hired on in the first place

as a former NY resident - i have and will go to NYC every sept 11th - not necessarily downtown WTC but to NYC - to keep in touch

whatever the golf course architects accomplish - golf as a game will transend the results and outlive the deficiencies or superiority of any golf course created

same as whatever is built at WTC - the spirit of NYC will survive if not perservere an architectural eyesore same as an architectural masterpiece

anyway if anyone here is available i'm scheduled (although NOT yet confirmed) at LAKE ISLE eastchester NY on SUN Sept 12th 11AM


PS - questions i would pose to you brother Matt is

- if two golf course architects do collaberate on a course BUT nobody plays it - is that a "winning" result by your definition ? My exapmle of course is WGV king and bear OR squire and slammer - the place at least when i went was a ghost town !
are these the CAMELS as i would predict ? or do you NOT see these two courses as legitimate collaberations but merely marketing puffery ?

[Matt_Ward]

brother frank:

Plenty of people (the masses) may play a course for a host of reasons -- many times the desire / need for quality architecture is really irrelevant to them. Just give them a cheap green fee and plenty of brew and like cows out in the field their content.

There is plenty of discussion here on GCA about winning efforts by architects that fly below the radar screen and will likely get little attention. For me -- the quality of the design is the driving force why I play. I'm not interested in where the masses play -- let's not forget the masses think McDonald's is cuisine.

Frank -- the courses you mentioned are simply marketing attempts to lure the suckers (excuse me the golfers!) to go there and plunk down their $$$.

[erichunter]

Maybe my definition of collaboration is way off base but I definitely don't look at a collaboration in golf architecture as something like Coore and Crenshaw, Toomey and Flynn, MacDonald & Raynor, Weiskopf and Moorish, Cornish, Silva and Mungeam. I look at arrangements like that as partnerships.

The collaborations above are such that they have worked numerous times with each other and have developed a style.  As for the architects building on the WTC site they have nothing in common and seem very unlikely to work again together.  

To compare on a gca level, perhaps Old Head would be analogous??  Up to 6 architects all played a major role in the design....too many chefs in the kitchen?    

[Tom_Doak]

Eric:

Old Head is not a good example at all.  Several architects [including me] spent time looking at it, but it was one after the other, trying to deal with a difficult client who wouldn't stick with anyone.  That was not a collaboration in any sense.

frank D:  I'm not interested in building a camel.  If that's what we wind up with at Sebonack, I'll quit the business altogether.  It's a great site and we are not about to screw it up over our differences.  I promise.