When did golf architects first use real landscape architecture principles?

[Adam Russell]

Steve,
 What landscape lessons do you think MacDonald would have taken from the fair?

I ask this because it is my own personal opinion that the 1893 fair had more of a direct impact on architecture and the Beaux-Arts Movement. And while FLO turned the events of the fair into notions that would become the City Beautiful Movement, I hold the opinion that the landscape took a backseat to the architecture in this instance. Put it this way, how many pictures have you seen of the architecture from the fair? My bet is it is way more than the landscape, because the architectural innovations of that fair took over the limelight. How could they not? Now I will say that the landscape gave or more lasting legacy since Jackson was the only thing left after a year to study and learn from. So I'm not trying to say the landscape did not have an effect on CBM, I just think he was probably staring at the buildings and trying out the electricity...

[Steve Burrows]

Adam, 

It seems as though someone paid attention in LA history class.  And yes, I heard the same stuff when I was in school. 

Ultimately, I do not doubt that architecture was the star of the Exposition (though there are many who would contend that the stringent focus on Neo-classicism regressed the field perhaps as much as 50 years), but I also think that the formalism of the fair afforded MacDonald the opportunity to legitimize his ideas and his work; this is to say that while very early American designs were simply laid out by someone who was interested in the game, the deliberately designed spaces and structures of the exposition MAY (my emphasis added to show that this is still conjecture) have convinced MacDonald that his was indeed a noble profession and one worth the struggle to legitimize and bring to the forefront.

[TEPaul]

Steve:

Although some may consider Macdonald to be the first American architect he was never a professional in that he never was paid for anything he ever did in architecture. From his own book it does appear he took something from landscape architecture theory in what he did with his courses.