Should an architect reveal creative inspiration?

[paul cowley]

Let me define that a little further.....

What people think about my work when I'm gone is going to be what its going to be.....and I'm fine with that.

I don't feel the need to invest any of my 'now' time  in an effort to protect or promote my image in my 'dead' time.

Now in Jeff and Tom's case, and in Forrest's and Ian's....people who have the ability to produce written work that can serve them now [and in the beyond  ]....then I think its much more important to observe, chronicle and explain to help keep the record straight.
At least for now....

But as for me, I'm smart enough to know what I'm not good at....which gives me a little more freedom.

....and to further keep the written record straight...Jeff Brauer is no egomaniac....just a plain old maniac maybe....but egomaniac...no.

...and also a "hadn't seen you around much, glad to see you back" welcome to Mister A Collins.

[Tom_Doak]

Peter:

You may very well be right about the first group of architects you named.

However, I would argue about the second group.  MacKenzie, Thomas and Tillinghast all wrote extensively ... that is usually an indicator of someone who cares what others think of their work.

[Philippe Binette]

I can reveal mine...

Banff
Dalmore
Speyburn
Cragganmore
Auchentoshan
Lagavulin

Hey, that might also be Stanley Thompson's list


Seriously, writing extensively on golf architecture is helpful for those willing to learn and develop their mind about it... So revealing your inspiration can only be positive

I would be surprised if somebody could go out and start copying an architect only by reading his stuff. You still have to put ideas into form...

For example, you could read or listen to everything Mackenzie ever said about routing, it will not give you answers about what to do in front of a piece of land.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Philippe,

I have never heard a gca mention their inspiration for routing, but I have heard many say they were inspired by Mac bunkers.  As you say, it would be hard to pin down the routing influence.  I like the general concept of the CP routing going in and out of different zones of the property, but without the ocean, any course I route similarly wouldn't likely attain the same results.

[TEPaul]

"Tom Paul,
Why would you prefer intent stayed a mystery?"


MikeN:

As I said in the first post the answer to that is probably pretty hard for me to explain or answer. But first of all, I didn't actually say I'd personally prefer an architect's intent to remain a mystery, I said I think I'd prefer his creative inspiration to remain a mystery.

I suppose I just like the idea that golfers, if they're interested in that kind of thing, should just suss it out for themselves, or the flipside for the architect would be---eg keep them guessing. Also, I see a lot of golfers and analysts say and think things about various holes or whatever and then when they find out that an architect took the idea or whatever from some respected hole somewhere their opinions automatically change and all of a sudden the hole takes on more legitimacy for them.

That kind of analysis and rationalization just kinda rubs me the wrong way, so I guess I'd rather see the creative inspiration (if it was another hole or whatever somewhere) remain a mystery.

[TEPaul]

PaulC:

Regarding your post #11---I love it---I really do. You know what I think about your particular vessel of inspiration and modus of creative inspiration----eg it might be more varied and complex and multi-source drawing upon than anybody I'm aware of. Some call your kind of approach "outside the box" thinking or a real willingness to do that. And on the flipside I think I had that fact confirmed about a year or so ago when you just kept muttering that something was just sort of not coming together (in Maryland) but you couldn't put your finger on it. 

So for this thread and it's question I exempt you----or you may just want to doodle it or draw it somehow or just do it and keep the mystery. 

Others, I think may get a bit more "stock" about this kind of thing and so it may be more easily explained and understandable to most.

Paul, any golf course architect who's going to start thinking about things for golf and architecture like "alien debris mounds" should, in my opinion, be put on a pinnacle for all to praise and admire or else put in something like a Hooters Bar with a lot of drinks with some of his friends and fellow collaborators.

Can't you just see the expression on her face when a big-breasted Hooters waitress asks us if we know what we want and you holler in a moment of creative inspiration----"AH-HAH, I've got it!!!!" And when she says to you; "Yes sir, what would that be?", you holler at her; "It's ALIEN DEBRIS MOUNDS!!"

[Philippe Binette]

After all, is there anything new in golf architecture....

Copy Mackenzie Bunkers.... the ones in Royal Melbourne, Kinston Heath, Crystal Downs or Cypress Point..

Words are the structure of ideas, the more well thought concept you can understand, the more it might help you... but it's not going to give you answers.

Hell, when doing restorations, people have a hard time copying a picture, so knowing all the history of golf architecture can help your mind, but it's not going to give you answers.

Putting your ideas on paper can only organize your thoughts of a precise moment. You might contradict yourself 4 years later. But your ideas might lead to questionning for somebody else, then it would be productive

[Peter Pallotta]

Jeff B, Tom D

You're both right: I went too far.  Paul's post just brought to mind the idea that gca is a more "immediate" art-craft than, say, novel-writing. That is, it HAS to work on the ground from the moment it is designed and built, or it will get changed.  (Heck, it even gets changed when it DOES work, and work perfectly, for its time). A novel can languish in obscurity for decades -- unchanged -- until at some future date it finally finds an audience; and thus the writer's ego can allow itself to focus on the future more than a golf architect's can.

Peter

[Lou_Duran]

Tom Doak,

"For at least some of my work I have written down what I remembered to be the inspirations for those golf holes and those ideas, but Mr. Keiser convinced me not to publish them for Pacific Dunes -- or at least not right away -- and I think he was right about that."

Can you tell us why Mr. Keiser asked you to do this and why you think he was right?

Was it because the more buzz the better, and the more speculation and publicity the better?

[Tom_Doak]

Lou:

I believe Mike thought it would be pretentious to write down all the "how and why" for a course before it opened, and that people might react negatively if they thought we were saying this course is more special than others by writing more about it.

Whereas, once it's ranked highly, people are more likely to clamour for more of its history, even if it might be a bit tainted by the passage of time.

I'm not sure if that validates your last paragraph, or if it's the opposite of what you were saying.

[TEPaul]

TomD:

You should write down the "how and why" of the architecture you do. I think most architects should. That doesn't necessarily mean it should all be published or made public but at least the future would have it perhaps with some research.

I sure do wish the likes of Crump at Pine Valley, Wilson at Merion wrote more about what they were doing and thinking through the years on their special projects. Apparently Herbert Leeds did keep a chronicle during his years at Myopia and it was used to some degree by the last Myopia history writer in 1975. Some of the older members remember it but it seems to be misplaced and gone now. To me that's really too bad. I hope it turns up again.

[Dan Herrmann]

This brings back memories of one of my first treehouse posts - is GCA more "art" or more "science".  I love discussing the art of the craft - this is a great thread!

Of course the science is important - critically important; but it's the art that "gets" me!

[Carl Rogers]

Tom & Jeff,

I have a feeling that one had a sufficiently encyclopedic knowledge of golf design for the last 200 years (not me) and several months to study and think about this subject of this thread in a particular context, a pretty good stab at it could be made.

But that would be quite a chore.

In the world of buildings, the Architect is often the least capable of explaining why they may like green glass.

[paul cowley]

TomP....you are more than welcome to ghost write my biography....after you finish Flynns of course!

 I would ask that you not stick too much with facts......instead just let your fervent mind wander hither and yon....preferably while practising a form of 'flask' writing.

You will not have a lot of drawings from prior years to rely on.

About a year ago I was trying to make more room for my teenage sons to practice their nefarious activities, and I decided to clear out my third floor 'tower' room office.

I ended up throwing out hundreds of landscape plans, land plans and old routings....right up to the last few years that are on computer disks.....I did keep a lot of the hand drafted architectural stuff from the past.

I started to go through the plans one by one...and enjoyed it at first.
 But it didn't take long for me to tire of this, and I knew I would never really want go through this exercise twice. Towards the end I was just throwing out files unopened, strangely elated. I even threw out a perfectly good ammonia blue print machine.....I knew I couldn't give the old dinosaur away.

I guess I am sharing this to reinforce where I get my inspiration from....all I have experienced has become part of the fabric I pull from, and I really don't need a blueprint of how I got here. I much prefer the feeling I get from the excitement and fears of the new and unknown.

Maybe someday I will want to look back and reminisce about the old, but I hope its about the same time my final few synapses blink out....but I'm sure this will change.....maybe....probably.