The case for Architectural Criticism - A 1925 Manifesto

[Bill Brightly]

Bill,

To achieve that tied in look that blends seamlessly with the surrounds of a golf feature the mass of fill has to be floated beyond its confines and in to the surrounding grades. In the golden age that was done with horse teams pulling a float, which is kind of like a box road grader with two blades set 12 or so feet apart.

My whole point is, when you are developing the lump of fill that will be your golf feature, with iron, and on a large scale, the grades are going to end up being too steep for a team of horses to float into the surrounds, and that leaves you with what Wayne is accurately pointing out as being unnatural.

No doubt there were horse teams and many men working on a Raynor site, but I am assuming that they were not involved in the cutting and filling phases of work of the features.

Raynor ventured in to this business of golf course design and construction with big guns. And my whole thesis is simply  that business men generally stay with the tools and methodologies that bring them success, because they have a responsibility to themselves, their associates, and their clients.

It is just a thesis, and I am presenting it here mostly with  questions.

What was Banks's nickname?

His nickname was Steamshovel, but your thesis is simplistic and wrong. Sorry.

The horses pulling a float is EXACTLY what we have on film as Banks was building Hackensack. Rayor and Banks CHOSE not to finish off their work as Flynn did (as Wayne describes) by tying the work into the land. Whether you like it or nor, Raynor and Banks created big, bold green complexes that stand out. That's what they were trying to do, it was NOT a result of their equipment!  I think Banks tried to go even bigger and bolder than Raynor, and certainly more than Macdonald.

For example, Macdonald built a relatively small pot bunker to guard the front of the Road Hole green. Banks built his 3 or 4 times larger. And he probably used a steam shovel to do it, hence the nickname. But is is simply wrong  to assume that the form of his courses followed the equipment he used. As I said, he most certainly used horses and hand crafting just like all the other architects.

[TEPaul]

MarkB:

Your posts #52 and #53 are comprehensive and including some interesting areas and details but I think you need to be careful with the very thing you use to explain what Macdonald did at particular times and what he wrote at particular times----eg a good timeline.

The fact is most all of what we have of Macdonald's writing on golf architecture and on his own life in golf and architecture was from his book "Scotland's Gift Golf". He began to write that book around 1926.

Therefore, what he wrote about architecture and what he both did and thought almost twenty years previous may not have been all that close to the same thing.

Just because Macdonald may've called his style of architecture "natural" or natural looking in some way, either actually or in some site-harmonious way, definitely does not mean it actually was that way or anywhere close to the extent of the natural looking architecture that was being done by others when he wrote that book almost twenty years after beginning NGLA.

[TEPaul]

BillB:

I couldn't agree with you more that Banks' style was not some result of differing construction equipment from the more naturalist boys who were his contemporaries.

And I very much like your observation that Banks apparently chose to go even big and bolder with his clearly man-made looking features than Raynor and certainly Macdonald did.

I think that fact alone probably speaks to the popularity amongst many golfers of that basic engineered style both then and probably now too!

The further this kind of discussion goes and the deeper it delves, it seems to me the more true the "Big World" theory of golf architecture becomes.

And if that is true (that the Big World theory really does and even should apply to golf archtiecture---eg that there needs to be a ton of diversity and difference in look and style out there to satisfy varying interests and tastes amongst the larger population of golfers) then I suppose it also proves that old adage---that "the more things change the more they remain the same."

Matter of fact, BillB, it may even be getting to that point that all of us need to recognize, once again, what may be the largest and greatest "principle" of all golf course architecture and architects which so many of the architects articulated and that is that their first and greatest responsibility was to create something that maximized the interest and enjoyment of those using it.

The fact that that really can be vastly different in look and style is pretty instructive, don't you think?

[Mark Bourgeois]

Oh yes. I agree.  Autobiographies -- especially those written by stockbrokers -- can easily transform into hagiographies.  He mentions in his book though:

"While abroad in 1906 I started a newspaper controversy regarding an ideal golf links and the copying of great holes in Great Britain.  Looking back these past twenty years, it is most interesting to note the comments..."

Maybe someone has the articles.  I thought somewhere else in his book he mentions The Times, but I can't find that reference just now.

Maybe we could ask Bob H if he remembers any of this...

Mark

[Mark Bourgeois]

Bradley,

Dumptrucks and machinery certainly played a role in the construction of the Yale course but I think the two main sources of power were horses and dynamite.

As to grades, here's a picture from the construction of the Yale 7th:



This hill incidentally is called "Horse Hill" because a horse died on it (and was buried there) during construction!

Mark

[Bill Brightly]

Bill Brightly:

You said in a post above that you think some of the Golden Age architects had gotten to a point where they believed Man could basically control nature or even dominate it, and perhaps that was reflected in the look of some of what they did.

If you think that attitude was reflected in what they built and was in some way a glorification of the man-made (engineered, manufactured) look in architecture, I'd pretty much disagree with that.

I think those naturalist Golden Age architects had come to realize they very much needed to dedicate themselves to a much greater appreciation for nature in architecture than what had come before them.

I have no doubt that there were many "naturalists" in the Golden Age, and they probably did not like the engineered look of MacRaynors. In fact, I bet the MacRaynor look gave them MORE reason  to perfect their art, to consciously make sure their work did not appear unuatural.

On the other hand, I think there were probably MANY people who did not mind an engineered look on the golf course at all. Look what Carnegie and Rockefeller and the other industrialists were building along the rivers of Pittsburgh and elsewhere in the US, look what their plants were doing to the water and the air! Do you think they suddenly became nature lovers when they interviewed guys to build their golf courses?

The game was so new in the US, there were no accepted styles, no real standards of excellence. That is what they all were developing. The "National School" was so far and away better than MOST of what these new courses replaced. So I think it would probably take a few years, and a significant body of work, before critics of the style put pen to paper.

[TEPaul]

MarkB:

I know I've said this about a dozen times in about a dozen ways over the years about Macdonald, but it really is as important, I think, to understand the man himself and where  he was coming from as it is what he either said or did in just golf architecture.

Charles Blair Macdonald because of what he was and what he'd done with golf before even NGLA is so important to understand about the beginnings of golf, particularly organized golf and architecture, in America.

I think he truly felt he was the one, probably the only one, who could show America the Truth and the Light about not just architecture but golf itself, its proper Rules, its proper culture and spirit, its proper type of administrative organization etc, and even what its long term future would best be.

There's no question at all that Macdonald was a stubborn, willful, opinionated and probably very egotistical man and with all that one might think he could've and would've gotten his own way with all these things far more than he ever did.

So why didn't he?

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?

The first reason, I believe, which most might not understand, is that Macdonald was working with men then who were every bit as strong-willed, opinionated and stubborn and egotistical as he was and the fact was many of them were a whole lot richer and more powerful than he ever was or would be. Matter of fact, at least one of them he very well may've worked for in his day job!

The thing that fascinates me so much about Macdonald, the man, is he sure did know how to push his points and his opinions and he sure did know how to push them hard sometimes but more than that, even he understood when he'd met his match.

I think this very thing served to depress him greatly for perhaps up the the last thirty years of his life, it you can believe it, even though he did try to explain why it happened the way it did in his own book!

[TEPaul]

"On the other hand, I think there were probably MANY people who did not mind an engineered look on the golf course at all. Look what Carnegie and Rockefeller and the other industrialists were building along the rivers of Pittsburgh and elsewhere in the US, look what their plants were doing to the water and the air! Do you think they suddenly became nature lovers when they interviewed guys to build their golf courses?"


BillB:

I think you're right that MANY people will always like or at least not mind that engineered look on a golf course. I think that kind of thing is probably pretty inherent in the makeup of man.

But do I think the likes of the Rockefellers and Carnegies and such, and many, many to perhaps most Americans were becoming nature lovers or naturalists or even conservationists while at the same time polluting the rivers and the earth?

You're damn right I do Bill! I think they most certainly did ply that extraordinary duality back then and are still doing it today to some degree!

Matter of fact, I've taken that very thought which I consider to be a fact of America's history and described it, even on here, as the uniquely American ETHOS of manifest destiny which very much did involve and still does an amazing DUALITY to, if not completely understand, at least to FEEL somehow how capable we really are of destroying the very things we both admire and love and feel are beautiful---and that really does, and always has, included the remarkable natural beauty and majesty of not only our own land but others---eg the natural world.

I think this all goes a long way to explaining how and why the basic American feeling (ethos, imagination etc) is one of both great pride in huge power or even agressiveness, while generally followed, and quite quickly, by forgivenss, and an expected sense of human fairness and even a large sense of guilt in some of the things we do or even feel.

I think these combinations in Americans (their ethos and duality) is probably what made the sense of real participatory democracy catch on over here in more and in more unique ways than the world had ever seen before.

How's that for sticking to golf course architecture, BillB?  

[TEPaul]

"The game was so new in the US, there were no accepted styles, no real standards of excellence. That is what they all were developing. The "National School" was so far and away better than MOST of what these new courses replaced. So I think it would probably take a few years, and a significant body of work, before critics of the style put pen to paper."


That's true, but if you can answer WHY those American critics even began to criticize Macdonald's style you might go a long way to answering Wayne Morrison's constant question.

Did the heathland architects criticize the National School style, even those who worked over here? Not that I'm aware of. And even with that did Macdonald ever pay a single word of homage to what had developed INLAND in the English heathlands? Again, if he did, I'm not that aware of it.

If that's all true what do you suppose that means with our understanding of this whole evolution in golf course architecture?

[wsmorrison]

"Look what Carnegie and Rockefeller and the other industrialists were building along the rivers of Pittsburgh and elsewhere in the US, look what their plants were doing to the water and the air! Do you think they suddenly became nature lovers when they interviewed guys to build their golf courses?"

That was one of the key reasons that the Rockefeller family chose Flynn to design the new course on their estate at Pocantico Hills.  They did love nature and wanted a course that would not stand out on the lawns of their estate.    The estate has wonderful nurseries, orangeries, nature trails, carriage trails, theme gardens, specimen trees and was designed in order to incorporate the incomparable views overlooking the Hudson River Valley.

I hope someone can post photographs of the original design of Chicago GC.  If so, it will be clear that what Macdonald wrote years later was not originally how he designed.  He was by far the most talented of the designers out of the National School, yet when studying his work it is fairly to see what was man-made and what was not, especially at the green end.  His disciples were even more overt about what was and what was not man-made.  Is that a slight?  No, it is a fact and in stark contrast to what others were doing before Macdonald and afterwards.  That is worthy of study.

[Paul_Turner]

"The attempt at reproducing well-known holes with hopelessly different materials is the most futile nonsense of the lot.  How often have I seen a piece of ground suitable for a good short hole spoilt by a silly attempt at reproducing the 11th (Eden) at St Andrews!  No; I firmly believe that the only means whereby an attractive piece of ground can be turned into a satisfying golf course is to work to the natural features of the site in question.  Develop them if necessary, but not too much; and if there are many nice features, leave them alone as far as possible, but utilise them to their fullest extent, and eventually there will be a chance of obtaining a course with individual character of an impressive nature."

HS Colt.

[Bill Brightly]

Wayne,

Don't you think that Raynor (and Banks) tried to take Macdonald's teachings to a higher level? By that, I mean a look that accented the features of the templates, thereby making their holes LESS natural looking than Macdonald's. That is the feeling  get when I play their courses, as if Raynor and Banks were trying to impress their teacher.

I think if Raynor had been Flynn's engineer, then went on to build his own courses, Raynor might have stressed a more natural look. But since Macdonald preached the template features, that is what Raynor emphasized on his own, it is as if Raynor was thinking: "CB will love the way I built this green complex."

[wsmorrison]

Bill,

I definitely think that Raynor and Banks expressed what they learned from Macdonald in a slightly different manner, one that is far less natural looking than what Macdonald was doing and even more differentiated from the work others were doing at the same time.  What accounts for this, I cannot say.  My own feeling is that it wasn't taken to a higher level but more of an extreme level.  That is higher in some minds than others.  There are proponents of Raynor and Banks that embrace that style and appreciate it more so than other styles.  There are others, like me, that enjoy many of the shots but do not like the look and some of the playability (flat bunkers for example).

Your last statement, which touches on the influence of his mentor, makes some sense to me.  Perhaps he would have designed more natural courses had he had other mentors.  Yet, he was a very smart guy and seems to have made a decision to do what he did.  The question is, did he do it because he liked that style best, because his clients wanted more of it, or because he could not or chose not to significantly evolve.

In considering the timeline of the work by Raynor and Banks, what can be said of their evolution in design?  They didn't just build templates, though they did on every course.  Of the original designs, what can be said over time?

[Mark Bourgeois]

"The attempt at reproducing well-known holes with hopelessly different materials is the most futile nonsense of the lot.  How often have I seen a piece of ground suitable for a good short hole spoilt by a silly attempt at reproducing the 11th (Eden) at St Andrews!  No; I firmly believe that the only means whereby an attractive piece of ground can be turned into a satisfying golf course is to work to the natural features of the site in question.  Develop them if necessary, but not too much; and if there are many nice features, leave them alone as far as possible, but utilise them to their fullest extent, and eventually there will be a chance of obtaining a course with individual character of an impressive nature."

HS Colt.

Paul,

What's the date on that quote?  Does it correspond to this debate CBM referenced?

Also, do you have a sense of how much MacKenzie's ideas flowed to Colt?  I unthinkingly assumed that as senior partner Colt would have taught MacKenzie many things, but I have been thinking of Colt's visit to Alwoodley.  Did he document what he thought of what he saw?  Did he find what he saw radical?

Mark

[Mark Bourgeois]

Oh yes. I agree.  Autobiographies -- especially those written by stockbrokers -- can easily transform into hagiographies.  He mentions in his book though:

"While abroad in 1906 I started a newspaper controversy regarding an ideal golf links and the copying of great holes in Great Britain.  Looking back these past twenty years, it is most interesting to note the comments..."

Maybe someone has the articles.  I thought somewhere else in his book he mentions The Times, but I can't find that reference just now.

Maybe we could ask Bob H if he remembers any of this...

Mark

Here it is:

"There were many articles in the London Times, most of which called my dream 'visionary,' many of which referred to it humorously.  I assured the humorous critics that they need not sit up nights fearing there was any danger of my carrying away the Maiden, Cardinal, Swilcan burn, or the 'genius of locality.' "

If Macdonald accurately characterized the views of many prior to the opening of The National, it hardly sounds like he was giving the public what they wanted.

Tom Paul, to your points re his personality, there's an interesting parallel to draw between Charlie Mac and Alister MacKenzie, certainly Mac's difficulties with the members at The Alwoodley.

Mark
Wayne, perhaps there was some me-tooism going on later, but surely not at first, huh?

Mark

[TEPaul]

Wayne:

It's tempting to wonder what Raynor and his style would've turned out to be had he started out as the engineer for Flynn or maybe Merion as Toomey did.

I'll tell you one thing, I don't think that Seth Raynor seems like he was a drinker and maybe they could've taught him that and how to apply it to architectural imagination.

I'll also tell you why Flynn and Toomey and Tillie and Mackenzie and the rest got into natural looking lines and away from engineered looking straight lines and that's because by the end of any day not a single danged one of them was remotely capable of walking a straight line much less thinking in straight lines.

[Mark Bourgeois]

 I do think that we have not discussed the differences and point in time where the natural-look and manufactured-look coincided and consider why the natural-look eventually took hold.  Yes Raynor died in 1926, but by then the natural school was well on its way to subordinating the manufactured school.  Why did they reject such a powerful movement that predated their efforts in the UK and would postdate their efforts in the US and abroad?

Well, are we sure they "rejected" it or did they just stick to their style?  That to me is the nub here: I really would like to know if Macdonald saw the field belonging to the larger field of "architecture."  If he did, he might have decried Obscurantism as wrong-headed heresy.

I can't speak for Flynn's career, but it seems to me the critical counterweight to Macdonald is MacKenzie, and in that regard, these twinned careers spun out in parallel.  The Colt quote seems to point to them doing more than that, there being a clash of ideas.

The counterweight IMHO against Macdonald's "architecture" is MacKenzie's version of "Obscurantism" or "sculpture."  He took golf course design away from the structural of "architecture."

The Alwoodley.  MacKenzie writes:

One of the reasons why Alwoodley, after twenty-five years, has a still more natural appearance than perhaps any other inland course, is that when we were constructing it we were trying to deceive not only the public but also the rest of the committee.  We felt that if we could hoodwink them into believing the artificial features we had made were made by nature we could get away with it and escape their hostile criticism.

This notion of hoodwinking, of obscuring, this is a very modern notion, and by 1907 Modernism was poised to really take off.  1907 was the Edwardian Era, a transition period from Victorianism to Modernism.

I find it fascinating how the members called in Colt and then Fowler.  It must have been like when people heard Louis Armstrong the first time -- except MacKenzie didn't awe those Alwoodley members.  He angered them.  It disturbed them deeply.  They cannot have understood what they saw.

Why did this philosophy eventually win out?  I would guess it came down to MacKenzie's perspective fitting neatly into the broader societal currents of Modernism.  I can't say a war-tested country doctor was aware of it, but how coincidental that 1907 gave birth to what may be considered the first truly modern golf course (or at least golf course with "modern sensibilities") and the biggest revolution in art to occur in 500 years (Cubism)?

Cubism's blurring of reality, its messiness, its abstruseness, fits nicely with this passage from Wethered & Simpson's book -- published in 1929, by which time many (not just elites but general public) would have experienced and absorbed at least some Modernist movements and works:

The task of the architect is therefore to create, if he can, this atmosphere of interest, to invent secrets that lie beneath the surface -- even appearances that can be partly misleading.  Many inviting spaces left open only flatter to deceive.  ...[W]here it is necessary to move earth to heighten levels or form depressions in new ground, the thing should be done with the delicacy of a sculptor modeling his clay.

Mark

[TEPaul]

Matter of fact, Wayno, and as you know, Tom MacWood actually suggested that the great Golden Age of Golf Architecture should be more appropriately renamed "Arts and Crafts Golf Architecture". He actually said that in his five part article on the "Arts and Crafts" Movement posted on here. Matter of fact I think the entire five part article may be entitled "Arts and Crafts Golf".  

I'm sure you remember me saying the Arts and Crafts Movement, particularly as it emanated from that religous fanatic/Communist (a contradiction in terms right there) William Morris was probably not a significant or fundamental enough influence on that era of golf architecture to warrant that.

But I'll tell you right now alcohol damn straight sure as hell was so I'm hereby proposing that the great Golden Age of Golf Architecture should be more appropriately renamed "The Great Alcoholic Age of Golf Architecture".

Is there any reason, ANY REASON AT ALL, that you can think of that should deny this should be the case?  

[TEPaul]

"This notion of hoodwinking, of obscuring, this is a very modern notion,...."

Mark:

Is that right? I didn't know that or that it began with Mackenzie at Alwoodley or some others in cubism around 1907. I've always thought the idea of hoodwinking, obscuring and deceiving was pretty much something that Man has been doing ever since he first started dealing with other men.

Of course we probably can't include Neanderthal Man in that because the roof of his mouth was either too close or too far away from his tongue (I can't remember which it was right now) so he couldn't communicate as well as us and our distant cousins from a million years ago and Neanderthal was basically dumb as a stump anyway compared to us and he couldn't even deceive or hoodwink a tadpole.

Frankly, I don't consider what Mackenzie did at Alwoodley decieving or obscuring or hoodwinking, despite what he wrote years later to rationalize what he did at Alwoodley to piss off the entire club including his own brother and get thrown out of the place for the rest of his life.

Do you call swiping some other member's wife and making off with her to the other side of the world deceiving or obscurantism or hoodwinking?

I don't. I call that kind of thing "cuckolding another man by  thinking first and last with your dong about his wife blatantism".

I think I might actually be able to make an acronym out of that if you think it important enough to the history and evolution of golf architecture.

[TEPaul]

But seriously, I just thought of something pretty interesting and pretty indicative.

Did either Macdonald or Raynor or Banks EVER even try to build a golf course WITHOUT one or a number of those template holes on it?

I don't think so and if not that really does tell you something pretty important about what they were up to and why they all stuck with that style, doesn't it?

I don't think a single other architect in the entire history of the art or business ever did anything like that.

[Mark Bourgeois]

"This notion of hoodwinking, of obscuring, this is a very modern notion,...."

Mark:

Is that right? I didn't know that or that it began with Mackenzie at Alwoodley or some others in cubism around 1907. I've always thought the idea of hoodwinking, obscuring and deceiving was pretty much something that Man has been doing ever since he first started dealing with other men.

Of course we probably can't include Neanderthal Man in that because the roof of his mouth was either too close or too far away from his tongue (I can't remember which it was right now) so he couldn't communicate as well as us and our distant cousins from a million years ago and Neanderthal was basically dumb as a stump anyway compared to us and he couldn't even deceive or hoodwink a tadpole.

Frankly, I don't consider what Mackenzie did at Alwoodley decieving or obscuring or hoodwinking, despite what he wrote years later to rationalize what he did at Alwoodley to piss off the entire club including his own brother and get thrown out of the place for the rest of his life.

Do you call swiping some other member's wife and making off with her to the other side of the world deceiving or obscurantism or hoodwinking?

I don't. I call that kind of thing "cuckolding another man by  thinking first and last with your dong about his wife blatantism".

I think I might actually be able to make an acronym out of that if you think it important enough to the history and evolution of golf architecture.

Ti-Paul,

I meant in the five fine arts!  Up to then realism, clear points of view, etc etc was the norm.  Modernism brought Impressionism, Cubism, New Drama, and the towering "Ulysses" -- stuff that wasn't so straightforward. (Even "Citizen Kane"...)

In vino veritas,
Mark

PS Neanderthal Man didn't die out, he designed The National.  We've been over this time and time again.  Remember?

PPS Re your Reply #73, remember, they didn't design courses that had only template holes, and their templates weren't always entire holes but specific shots, too.  (This was something I picked up from George Bahto's book, so that's solid ground right there.)

There was greater flexibility in their designs than is implied by "template holes."  It's not like they were designing Old Macdonald, Bear's Best, or Architects, stamping one each for Bandon, Las Vegas and Atlanta.

PPPS What if Charlie Mac came back today?  Tell me he wouldn't fit in better than a lot of these old-timey guys.  I don't know if this confirms or dispels his sobriquet.  I leave that proof to you...

[Mike_Cirba]

Ok.

Just checking in to see how this thread is progressing.

Nicely, I see.    

[wsmorrison]

UK steeplechase courses

Richmond GC (1891)

2nd hole



10th hole



Eltham Links (1893)

1st hole



17th hole



Scarborough (189-)

4th hole

[Mike_Cirba]

Speaking of Steeplechase and geometric architecture, I played Riverton in NJ today, which had the first nine holes on the property designed by John Reid and James Coale in 1900.

On the 9th hole, there is a cross-bunker stretching straight across the entire fairway on the par five that must be cleared by today's 2nd shot.  I assume it's a remnant from the original course that Donald Ross kept when he built 18 holes there in 1917.

It was a nice touch to a different time and architectural mindset.  

[Dan Herrmann]

I just want to say "Thank You" for all the intelligent posts in this thread - reading them is truly a wonderful way to learn and grow in my appreciation for the history of the art and science of GCA.