Odious Comparisons

[Slag_Bandoon]

"... the superior mind learns by analyses: the study of Nature."

Frank Lloyd Wright

  FLW would be a more complete architect if he would have studied further into the nature of rainwater and drainage.  I think he saw nature primarily as a visual concept and did not always consider all of its realities.  

    What architect blends all the natures into the best product?  By all the natures, I'm speaking of the "Nature of machines...     the nature of nature (often smothered with personal prejudice)...  
  Human nature....       nature of golfers....     nature of specific soils....    nature of vision...   nature of neural passages...         nature of construction workers....           nature of enthusiasm for vision....   nature of communicating that vision...   nature of drainage...        nature of the community....     nature of shot values...   nature of luck...   nature of pressure....   nature of responsibility to the workers, the owners, the land, the game of golf...    the nature of ego,  etc.

  Think about FLW's occupation for a second.  He was a building architect.  By the very nature of what he was compelled to design, he was removing people from the elements of nature; regardless of his intentions of blending with nature.    

  How honest is golf architecture in being wholey natural?  

[Tim Liddy]

“Each time you walk in nature, it is a fresh and original experience.  Whether you squeeze through a small opening amongst maple trees, or pick your way across a rushing stream, or climb a hill to discover an open meadow, everything is always moving and changing spatially-towards the infinite. It’s a continuing kind of pull.  Instead of copying the end-result of an underlaying process, I try to tap into the essence of Nature: the process is evolution; things are moving and growing in a related, organic way; that is exciting, this sense of space and release and movement.  As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, ‘Nature who abhors mannerisms has set her heart on breaking up all style and tricks’.  Instead, one must go right to the heart and source: the interplay of forms and volumes that, when arranged dynamically, release a continuum that connects outwards.  Should not the role of design be to reconnect human beings with their space on their land? “

Dan Kiley

This is what all the great golf courses possess -that we all talk so much about.

[Tom Doak]

"No matter how skilfully one may lay out the holes and diversify them, nevertheless one must get the thrill of nature. . . . The puny strivings of the architect do not quench our thirst for the ultimate."

-- George Thomas 1927

While you may be right that hardly any golf courses are entirely natural, those which appear closest seem to have the most appeal.

[A_Clay_Man]

Pat- I'll tell you alittle about me, I've grown up around artists more than any other group that could be singled out. One of my early beliefs was that I would rarely criticize anybodies work because at least they had the balls to create it and that deserved some X amount of credit.

Since stumbling upon this GCA site I can honestly say that my criticism's have been of what has come to be known as standardized. You know, the one dimentional stuff people actually pay millions of dollars to have made for them. I guess a fool and his money were lucky to get together in the first place.

 I think Tom Doak's observation above that those that come closest are the best sums up what I feel and have felt prior to ever having surfed the www.

[Mike_Cirba]

My, we do a lot of comparisons around here, don't we?

I'm reminded of a golf course critic for a city newspaper whose every other review seems to bring up the 2-3 most popular CCFAD's by way of comparison.  For instance, he'll say, "while it's no "Two Hundred Miles from any Ocean Links at Farmland Golf Club", it's certainly a good value course given the lush conditioning and challenge".  Or, on a course he really likes, he'll tell us that "this course raises the bar on local public golf in the region, in the league of even such renowned courses as "Two Hundred Miles from any Ocean Links at Farmland Golf Club".  

At their best, comparisons can provide useful information by referring to shared experiences and commonly-known information and using that as the basis to augment and supplement additional detailed opinion and fact.  At worst, they are a form of intellectual laziness, offering little of insight or real individual or original value.  

[TEPaul]

Pat, you asked;

"Does "relativity" create "standards"?"

I'd guess it sure could in certain circumstances with certain people. Does that mean relativity creating standards is not a good thing for architecture?

That's sort of a hard one to answer, depending on what's meant by relativity and standards, I guess.

I like difference in architecture. I think difference is much of the interest and vibrancy of golf architecture taken as an entire art form.

Some might say what works somewhere might work anywhere or vice versa and I sure wouldn't go that far. So I don't think "standardization" in architecture in that general sense is probably a very good thing.

For instance, to say that blindness does not belong in architecture or trees do not belong in the hole strategies of architecture etc, etc, is a mindless "standardizaton" that homogenizes architecture very much to its detriment, in my opinion.

Difference in architecture can be good. Uniqueness can be good. If either were "standardized" they would either cease altogether or cease to be different and cease to be unique, wouldn't they?

[Dan Kelly]

The only odious comparison I can think of is between FLW's ability to express himself architecturally and verbally.  We are all the better for the fact that he chose to build things rather than write about them.

Hear, hear!

[hoggmeister]

Rich and Dan-

If only it was true. FLW wrote book after book about FLW, magazine articles about FLW, and went on early television talking about FLW. The good news is that only biographers actually read the stuff.

Tim Liddy--

When you started this thread I was curious to see where it went. True to form it verred off in an unanticipated and incomprensible direction.

I was, however, surprised by the Dan Kiley quote for two reasons.

One, if he knew you had lumped him  in with FLW and odious comparisons, I suspect  he would be up in Charlotte smiling right now.   Two, I associate most of his work with grid based classicism .--something very diferent from what the quote implies.