The case for Architectural Criticism - A 1925 Manifesto

[Mark Bourgeois]

He should congratulate himself for outlasting Paul Cowley.  In the spirit of equal time, per MacKenzie at Alwoodley it should be noted Charlie Mac kept a cottage for his mistress on the grounds of his house ("Old Battery") at Mid-Ocean.

So there!

As to references and antecedents, these weren't men they were Gentlemen.  You know, chaps and toffs.  They have been provincial in many respects, but it would have been difficult for them to seal themselves off from, if not direct exposure to these things, then to referential conversations, actions, etc.

They were of the larger world.  Macdonald quoted Repton, Wethered&Simpson reached back to John Ruskin, and Colt was, what, an Old Blue and stewed in a toff's brew of Rye, Sunningdale and les avocats.

Mark

[TEPaul]

MarkB:

Seriously, I think you are onto something here, and will be really onto something when I pull you back out of a couple of no-outlet back alleys and deadend cul-de-sacs you darted down in your haste and verve and get you heading back down that enlightening winding byway up to the sunlit uplands of golf architectural nirvana and Truth!

[TEPaul]

JC Jones said:

"So, in case it seems confusing, I am essentially raising these two points:

1.  The irony that the "Americanization" is really an evolution to the beginning of golf course design.

2.  That "naturalism" is America's way of fulling embracing the game of golf because we have "realized/decided" that the first way is/was the best way."


JC:

I'm not too sure what you mean when you say that the "Americanization" is really an evolution to the beginning of golf course design.

By that do you mean that most of the so-called ultra naturalists of the Golden Age in America (even if some of them weren't Americans) turned back to the naturalism of the original linksland for their inspiration in what they were trying to make and create?

Personally, I just continue to believe that everything contained in those articles that Max Behr wrote in this vein explains this entire evolution and even the reasons for it so well.

As for your second question, let's deal with that later.

[Mark Bourgeois]

MarkB:

Seriously, I think you are onto something here, and will be really onto something when I pull you back out of a couple of no-outlet back alleys and deadend cul-de-sacs you darted down in your haste and verve and get you heading back down that enlightening winding byway up to the sunlit uplands of golf architectural nirvana and Truth!

LOL this whole exercise is string gathering and here's another one: yes on the plasticine.  That gets back to Tom Doak's point about artificialness but is the issue there just one of execution? If so, we can shut down this Mac v. Mac because doesn't that mean they agreed philosophically?

Now, continuing to push sideways and not forward, who said this:

In this connection plasticine is frequently used for making models of undulations.  Plasticine is useful to teach the green-keeper points in construction he would not otherwise understand – in fact, I believe, I was the first designer of golf courses to use it for this purpose.  

Mark

[TEPaul]

"LOL this whole exercise is string gathering...."

String gathering???

Cool. It sounds like fun. Just don't try to sell me on this new scientific "String Theory" crap because my world-class math genius cousin tells me that's no more than academic mental masturbation---ie no practical value in the physical realm.

When I was a kid I was definitely into fire-fly gathering but when one grows up one usually must give up his childish ways. But I think I could get into "string gathering".

[wsmorrison]

Wikipedia's entry for Plasticine:

Plasticine was formulated by art teacher William Harbutt of Bathampton, near Bath, England in 1897. He wanted a non-drying clay for use by his sculpture students. Although the exact composition is a secret, Plasticine is composed of calcium salts (principally calcium carbonate, i.e. chalk), petroleum jelly, and long-chain aliphatic acids (principally stearic acid). It is non-toxic, sterile, soft, malleable, and does not dry on exposure to air (unlike superficially similar products such as Play-Doh, which is based on flour, salt and water). It cannot be hardened by firing; it melts when exposed to heat, and is flammable at much higher temperatures.

A patent was awarded in 1899, and in 1900 commercial production started at a factory in Bathampton. The original Plasticine was grey, but the product initially sold to the public came in four colours. It was soon available in a wide variety of bright colours. Plasticine was popular with children, widely used in schools for teaching art, and found a wide variety of other uses (moulding for plaster casts, for example). The Harbutt company promoted Plasticine as a children's toy by producing modelling kits in association with companies responsible for popular children's characters such as Noddy, the Mr Men and Paddington Bear.

The original Plasticine factory was destroyed by fire in 1963 and replaced by a modern building. The Harbutt company continued to produce Plasticine in Bathampton until 1983. It is still manufactured today, but in smaller quantities, and is marketed once more as an art material.

Plasticine is often used in animation. This technique is popularly known as claymation in the US, and is a form of stop motion animation. Plasticine is appealing to animators because it can be used with ease: it is moldable enough to create a character, flexible enough to allow that character to move in many ways, and dense enough that it can retain its shape easily when combined with a wire armature.

[Kyle Harris]

Plasticine Porters of yellow and green, towering over your head

[JC Jones]

To me, that's the flipside all of us need to learn, understand and appreciate more.

I think there's just so much to all this but that the whole thing is basically represented in a particular remark in Macdonald's book "Scotland's Gift Golf" that took place in 1901.

Horace Havemeyer, the highly respected first president of the USGA had just died and the presidency was taken over by president Robertson who said in his acceptance speech:

"While we thank the other side for what they've given us in golf, what I'd like to see is "American Golf" for nothing can stay long in America without being Americanized."

I think that remark alone and the significance of what it meant that was to follow was like a virtual dagger right through Macdonald's mind and heart. And don't forget, that remark was made in 1901.

I think when Macdonald looked back through his life and times in golf and even in architecture when he wrote his book in 1926 that very remark represented everything that came to disappoint him and that he probably knew then that he would never pull off all of his dream for golf and even architecture over here.

But if he was so willful and stubborn and strong-willed and even respected why couldn't he pull off his entire dream over here?

Tom Paul:

Here is where the "Americanization" term originated for me with respect to my post.  This was, in your assumption, the dagger.  

If one can pull from this thread that the post-classical school could be considered the "Americanization," and one can consider the "naturalist" movement to be the post-classical school, then what I am saying is that the Americanization of gca is a return to "using what nature gives us," which has always been my interpretation of the design "used" at St. Andrews.

I have not read the Max Behr articles, in fact I've never seen them.  I'd like to, though.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Is someone asserting that obscurantism is down to objections to the use of plasticine models?

Or are we subtracting from the sum of human knowledge here?

A point:
*Why is it better for a golf hole to appear as though it were never built?  What is the philosophical justification for that perspective?
*How come nobody expects other architectural forms, like bridges, parking decks, airport terminals, and office buildings, to be similarly obfuscated / hidden?
*Is golf course architecture really "architecture" or is it "design?"
*Is landscape architecture really "architecture?" If so, why?

Mark

[Norbert P]

 Great thread folks.

I was wondering if anybody has the old "Raynor Paradox" thread. I can't seem to find it.


Kyle,  Juicy In the Eyes with Crampons ?

[TEPaul]

"I was wondering if anybody has the old "Raynor Paradox" thread. I can't seem to find it."

Slag:

I hope somebody can find it so we all can see, AGAIN, what a bunch of bullshit the thread poster's premise, assumptions and conclusion was. Either that or the man does not have much in the way of eyes!  

Sure, you can find straight flat lines in Nature but why would a golf architect want to manufacture straight flat lines on a site and in a visible area that doesn't have any natural straight flat lines?

MarkB, are you out there? Would you like to weigh in on this thread and talk about whether Frank Lloyd Wright was an inveterate bedwetter? Or would it be more appropriate to say "obscurantist", "hoodwinker" or "nature-faker"?

[Mark Bourgeois]

Well, he was an inveterate philanderer...

[TEPaul]

MarkB:

Seriously, I take back what I said to you in that last post about Frank Lloyd Wright and here's why----eg you made a very fine point, in my opinion, between the fundamental and material difference between building architecture and golf course architecture.

It's all about the very different "mediums", that's for sure. It's just amazing how many people forget something that fundamental when comparing (not contrasting) art forms.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Aha -- look what I found!

From Robert Hunter, in his preface to "The Links:"

"It is difficult properly to picture this new art, and it is but little less difficult to write of it.  Like most of the work being done by the inexperienced, the words we use in writing of the new art are hard, awkward, and ugly.

"Building, construction, architecture -- these seem ill-chosen terms to use when we cast about to find words to describe that modelling and moulding of the ground which supply the best opportunities for interesting golf.

"In the days of 'poor Tom Dunn' we might have spoken of the erectors of golf-courses; as the zarebas, ramparts, ridges, and cones of his day and hand(sic?) could only have been thus accurately described.

"But at present I think we might well speak of the sculptors of golf courses.  In most of the best work of to-day ploughs and scrapers are used to fashion and contour the ground so that it may be made to serve the uses of the game.

"Proportion, symmetry, and uniformity are carefully worked out in the designs, and when the finished product appears it so blends itself with the surrounding landscape that few can tell where nature ends and art begins."

Mark

[JC Jones]

More on plasticine.

Dr. M with respect to plasticine and undulations:

"In this connection plasticine is often used for making models of undulations.  Plasticine is useful to teach the greenkeeper points in construction he would not otherwise understand; in fact I believe I was the first golf course designer to use it for this purpose.  The 14th green at Alwoodley, which was the first one made there, was constructed from a model in plasticine.  It has its disadvantages, however, as a course constructed entirely from models in plasticine always has an artificial appearance and can never be done as cheaply as one in which the superintendent is allowed a comparatively free hand in modeling the undulations in such a manner that not only do they harmonize with their surroundings but are constructed according to the various changes in the sub-soil discovered whilst doing the work.

A green constructed from a model in plasticine looks like a plasticine model.  One of the reasons for this is that it is difficult to produce the hollows in plasticine as well as the rises.  Many architects have, with increasing experience, given it up in favour of sketches."

[Mark Bourgeois]

Now, continuing to push sideways and not forward, who said this:

In this connection plasticine is frequently used for making models of undulations.  Plasticine is useful to teach the green-keeper points in construction he would not otherwise understand – in fact, I believe, I was the first designer of golf courses to use it for this purpose.  

Okay, since everybody asked, here's the quote in entirety:

In this connection plasticine is frequently used for making models of undulations.  Plasticine is useful to teach the green-keeper points in construction he would not otherwise understand – in fact, I believe, I was the first designer of golf courses to use it for this purpose.

The 14th green at Alwoodley, which was the first one made there, was constructed from a model in plasticine.

It has its disadvantages, however, as a course constructed entirely from models in plasticine has always an artificial appearance, and can never be done as cheaply as one in which the green-keeper is allowed a comparatively free hand in modeling the undulations in such a manner that not only do they harmonize with their surroundings, but are constructed according to the various changes in the subsoil discovered whilst doing the work.

So Alister MacKenzie was a user, even if as here he later claimed not to inhale.

Mark

[TEPaul]

MarkB:

Your post #117 containing that quote from Hunter is positively fantasitc and would appear to make a point you've tried to make on this thread.

Would you mind making that point again? No joking around now, make it as well as you possibly can. I, for one, am watching, reading and listening REALLY carefully!

[TEPaul]

"So Alister MacKenzie was a user, even if as here he later claimed not to inhale"


I just so hate to see remarks like that on here. It only shows me that those making them are making bullshit interpretations ninety years later, and in some contexts ninety years later of what the poster on here thinks they meant back then but that they could have had no way of knowing about back then.

Let's see if we can have a more historically accurate discsussion of what they really might have meant back then!

[Mike_Cirba]

I either need to drink a lot more of the good stuff or dig out my college bong to get in the proper frame of mind for this thread, but since it's late at night let me just try and get to what I think is the nucleus of the argument for naturalism, or obscurantilism in as few words as possible.

At its core, golf is illusion.   It provides man with the happy fantasy that through his actions, he is in control.   We talk about the challenge...of the land, of the elements, of the vagaries of life and fortune, and it seems that our greatest golfing dreams are seemingly hitting that perfect shot or even several reasonably satisfactory ones that termporaily overcome our physical insignificance and ineptness and allows us to feel momentarily powerful in a vast, unknown universe not of our own making.

To help complete the illusion, we need to travail and prevail against a canvas that at it's most genuinely, conspiratorially authentic , is almost indistinguishable from the hostile realities of nature at her most unpredictably complex, arbitrarily emotive, and seductively alluring.  

Anything that obviously screams out the planned hand of man; whether some disdainful, unmerciful, sadistically penalizing attitude of an angry, frustrated artist towards his unfortunate patrons, or worse yet, a platitudinous, patronizing, and condescending attempt to neutralize naturally wild, random forces while ingratiatingly contriving to limit the silent, metaphysical conversation to simplistic man-made understandings...to arrogantly attempt to "tame" the earth, to limit her variables, and somehow stack the odds in our favor (i.e. the hated "containment mound"), causes some degree of inherent, reactive conflict between the primal urges we instinctively use our golf to satiate, and the fragile relevant reality of what our finite mortal limitations are contrastasted with what we hope they might be on this world.

Crossing a bridge, or driving a road, or building a shelter hold none of the same vain, valiant attempts at temporary immortality.

[TEPaul]

Oh, I don't think you need another drink at all, Mike Cirba, I think you're doing just fine as you are.

And, by the way, where have you been and what have you had to drink before posting that post?

In my opinion, the PC people of today are so unfortunate in how far away they have gotten from the beauties and clarity of flask architecture!

Unfortunately, they are the last to acknowledge it, to admit it or to understand it.

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom,

Dark Bermudian Rum works wonders.  

[Rich Goodale]

All this talk of bongs and plasticine and art vs. nature makes me wish I were back in the 60's sharing some time with Cynthia Plaster Caster.......

[Mike_Cirba]

I made a reasonable effort to find in the above responses the author of the original post by Mike.  Has that name come out yet?

Kelly,

No, I don't believe anyone has identified the author and it remains a mystery to me, as well.

It appeared in a USGA Greens Section periodical in 1925.   Anyone familiar with which architects/interested observers normally contributed to that magazine at the time?

[wsmorrison]

National School photographs

Chicago GC  Not much going on with the green, the photo was taken in 1912.  Notice the linear mounding on the left and top right.



NGLA 4th



NGLA 6th  A fabulous green!



Lido 8th  That looks to be one heck of a good green.



Yale 5th



Yale 9th  It looks as though the swale between the fairway (evidently not green height) and the green was kept as rough--it looks the same height of cut as the side slopes).



Castle Harbor 18th  This too doesn't look like the grass is cut at fairway height between the fairway and the green.



Whipoorwill 13th  Interesting green contours

[wsmorrison]

Here is the full article.  Given that it was published by the Green Section without identifying the author, it may well have been written by CV Piper and RA Oakley, the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Green Committee.  Piper and Oakley worked closely with Hugh Wilson, William Flynn and Walter Harban and may have learned a thing or two from the Nature Faker.