Gillette Silver thinks he is turning Chinese.

[John Kavanaugh]

Is this arts and craft on a larger scale?

Not at all.  Arts and Crafts may be an interpretation of nature but does not reflect it.  The interesting thing about the architecture of the Birds Nest and Water Cube is that neither could not be built without the use of modern computer models.  That is why it is technoaturalism.

[RJ_Daley]

hmmm... the Coliseum of Rome was not built with CADD, and yet, I suspect employs as much of the principles of nature as the Birds Nest.  While the WC uses the model of the strength of the random integratedness of soap bubbles, the great natural load bearing strength of the arch seems to me to be just as rooted in natural physics...

You do golf architects a great injustice if you remove any hint of social conscience from their work.

I really don't follow that one, JK.  I do get that structural and golf architecture can be a reflection of the society, culture, and inherent native land where/from which it is created.  How do I do them an injustice?  That I don't see the model of the Guggenheim as being some jumping off point for modernism in GCA....  How so? 

Can we be looking for more inspirational influence of soap bubbles and nesting twigs integrated into our roadways in the future, JK?

[John Kavanaugh]

hmmm... the Coliseum of Rome was not built with CADD, and yet, I suspect employs as much of the principles of nature as the Birds Nest.  While the WC uses the model of the strength of the random integratedness of soap bubbles, the great natural load bearing strength of the arch seems to me to be just as rooted in natural physics...

You do golf architects a great injustice if you remove any hint of social conscience from their work.

I really don't follow that one, JK.  I do get that structural and golf architecture can be a reflection of the society, culture, and inherent native land where/from which it is created.  How do I do them an injustice?  That I don't see the model of the Guggenheim as being some jumping off point for modernism in GCA....  How so? 

Can we be looking for more inspirational influence of soap bubbles and nesting twigs integrated into our roadways in the future, JK?

Dick,

I know as little about cuffing a perp as you must about structural engineering.  The arch is a simple math equation that any structural engineer could solve long hand with pencil and paper.  Same for the Coliseum of Rome.  The Guggenheim was opened in 1959 and Brad Klein has declared modern golf to start in 1960.  If you had ever played a RTJ course from the early 60's and walked the hall of the Guggenheim you might grasp my point.  Just as the building that was built to house art outshines the art a RTJ course outshines the golf.  Each is man made beauty that suddenly chooses to be the show more that a device to house one.  Sydney Opera house is in the same annoying theme that reflects the society of its day.

I don't know what technoaturalism reflects because we haven't found out where we are going yet.  Hopefully using technological advances to return to the most basic natural forms won't lead to a society that reflects those organisms that first created these models.  If it does than it is important.  If not than it is just pretty and you are correct in making a joke of the whole idea.

[Mike_Cirba]

John,

I must be up way too late because I am beginning to understand exactly what you are saying.

I also agree that golf course architecture somewhat reflects the time it's built within, and at present that's both good and bad for the art.   

Golf course design in the next 20 years will also be distinctly different from where we are today, no question. 

I don't know where it's going either, but it also seems to me that the variations on the faux natural theme have been pretty much exhausted to a degree, as witnessed by the latest pics of the DMK course in Bend.

The strange part is that the ideas that spawned it...the philosophy known as "minimalism"...never really got a fair shake before it was co-opted and morphed into something just as artificial as what preceeded it.   

Perhaps as water and other primary natural resources become more scarce and costlier, we'll actually see minimalistic courses, but we sure ain't there now, nor have we been (except for some rare examples) over the past 15 years or so.

[RJ_Daley]

JK. I have spoken of it before, but I will mention the place again.  There is a place where RTJsr golf course architecture and FLW building architecture come together as a comparison of style, form and function, as it were.  The Springs golf course and the adjacent supperclub building, The Spring Green Restaurant.  And I investigated buying them in 1988-9!  Admittedly, more of a pipe dream than commitment to pull the trigger, but I explored the idea to the extent of obtaining all the offering materials, inspecting the facilities several times, and discussing the possiblities with potential partners.  

front entrance

faces river


hard to find golf course photo


I am no expert on either FLW or RTJ, nor their design crafts.  Who is?  But, I thought I got the general idea in exploring each work.  The course might be thought of as rather bland golf design in a spectacular setting.  I played it for several years at least once a year.  While the restaurant might be thought of as an impressive building within a natural blended setting with poor functionality as an operating restaurant operation in the efficient sense.  The rumors are legendary of all the roof leaks and other structural questions.  The R.E. sales person that showed it was very intent at steering me from obvious problems/questions I had, but since my family had been in the restaurant biz, I had some pretty good sense of what features were not well thought out as a commercial restuarant operation.

I'd say that of the RTJ golf courses I've seen on TV, I'd like them much more than the one I've played due to what appears to be more dramatic architecture in relation to golf strategy.  I like RTJs tiered greens concepts.  The one I've walked while viewing the PGA was Hazeltine.  I found it to be a big beautiful course.  That, after much design change from its original presentation that Dave Hill said was a 'perfectly good farm ruined' by RTJ.  As to how the flowing spiral corridors of the Guggie is greater than the art that is in it, I'm not sure that is a slam at modern art, or do you think the building is that revolutionary and functional.  But, to say RTJ's work is somehow a part of FLW's modernistic vanguard of design sensibilities still escapes me.