"Mr. Paul, you mention basic design principles. I maintain (from my limited expertise) that either being or appearing natural is one of the key principles of design, if not THE key principle. While the Country Club is a highly natural design and the Ocean Course is highly manufactured, both (with the exception of Kiawah's 17th) appear natural in construction
The Falling Waters example fits with this as well. Certainly it does not appear natural instead of man-made. At the same time, it is in harmony with its surroundings. It is juxtaposition of man and nature, but the two forces are not at odds, quite the opposite in fact."
JNC:
While I am one who very much appreciates the look of naturalism in golf architect----and I believe I can identify it well--I do not necessarily believe it is a key principle in golf architecture. It probably was and is for some but not all. The fact is there can be and are very good courses that do not look like Nature made their features even remotely---many of their features look distinctly man-made and sometimes apparently on purpose.
If that is true, and I, for one, believe it is, what then are some of the key principles in golf architecture? I would say as to playability or shot values and such the best or key principles are things like interesting angles of play that depend on architectural features such as the diagonal line of features and such, the interesting slopes and contours of the ground in length, width and height.
It is very possible for a golf course to play really well with a distinctly man-made look to those features. On the other hand some like a distinctly natural aesthetic or look to those architectural features and others may not. But I believe both can play well if they include key golf architectural principles.
Some today may say that key golf architectural principles must include key landscape architecture principles as well. While some perhaps most may prefer that I do not know that it is necessarily true. If one considered a golf course like TOC over 160 years ago (before much of anything was ever done to it by a golf architect) would one say it conformed to our man-made landscape architecture principles as we apply them to golf architecture principles or would one simply say TOC was basically wholly made just by Nature herself and essentially unaltered by Man?
As to Fallingwater, it most certainly is a fascinating juxtaposition with it's setting in nature. I'm a real fan of Frank Lloyd Wright and Fallingwater and I might say there is some kind of harmony in the distinctly man-made linear dimensions of the building in contrast to the broken highly random lines of the natural setting of the stream and woods but on the other hand one might also consider the juxtapostion of the distinctly man-made lines in CONTRAST with the natural setting and to be at odds with one another for the simple reason there is a ton of history between both Man and Nature where they have been intrinsically at odds with one another in something of a natural competition.
If that is true, and for the purposes of this discussion it may be important, however, to consider that the juxtapostion of contrast or the being at odds or looking to be at odds with one another is not necessarily a negative or a bad thing and may even be considered a good thing in the vein of some sort of ultimate reality (perhaps between Man and Nature or Nature and Man).