Lloyd – good post. But first off, I’d disagree that we're playing around with language, if you meant that in a negative sense. Yes, most of us every minute of every day (and for convenience sake) simply accept the standard conventions of language and the agreed-upon uses/meanings of words. But then, most of the time most of us are just talking, and not actually communicating. The obvious example is the word 'love': can I possibly know what you really mean by that word if I hear you using it about your music or your partner or your dog? Can you really know what I mean by it, regardless of the context in which I use it? I’d say no, not unless we decided to make some so-called educated guesses about each other; or unless we’d known each other for years and very well; or unless you or I took the time and effort to try to use other words to explain what we meant. So we muddle along, and I'll try to explain what I mean by ‘meaning’ in the context of golf course architecture/Max Behr quote.
A poor analogy:
I believe that a person has an essence and a meaning that is independent of any role he/she has or plays in the world (as an employee or parent or friend or artist or healer). That essence and meaning is inherent in every person, and resides in the innermost part of their being, and is a deeply personal matter between them and their god. I really can’t know what that essence and meaning is; perhaps after decades together with someone they might share a sliver of it with me. But I do know that a person’s essence and meaning has nothing to do with their usefulness to me (as friend or artist or employee), and certainly not to any ends that are about my own wants and desires. I try hard nowadays not to even delve too deeply into another person’s meaning – for as someone wrote, it’s the fool who tries to understand how something works by breaking it apart.
In some similar ways, I think that nature too has an essence and a meaning, with each specific natural site having its own unique stamp of essence and meaning. I think that this essence and meaning is independent of any role we might want nature to play for us or for our benefit, or of any role that we might force it into serving, as in turning it into a golf course. (By the way, I think that some people who really hate golf, or at least hate seeing a forest or a desert turned into a golf course, might be thinking along those lines, and feel that a forest or a desert’s inherent meaning and essence are being betrayed and dishonoured by the conversion; and I have to admit that a part of me feels that way too.) But alas, we humans will in fact continue to try to use nature to serve our own ends, and so the question remains of how best to honour and respect that nature while having it become our field of play. And when I read Behr’s quote, my first and gut reaction was to feel that this is what he was addressing.
The architect, Behr might be saying, should strive first and foremost and as much as possible to seek out and honour the meaning and essence of the nature (i.e. the natural site) he is working on. The forms necessary for the game of golf and golf course architecture that we’ve invented should come second, and even then should ideally spring out of that essence instead of being imposed upon it. In other words, the art of golf course architecture is about trying to interpret what a natural site’s features might mean in terms of the game of golf, not what that game of golf requires/demands that site become.
The art of golf course architecture lies in discovering new and uniques holes (that fulfill the requirements of the game) in the land itself, even if those holes don’t fit our preconceived or tried-and-tested ideas of what a golf hole must be. The art does not, or should not, lie in arriving at a site with a handful of shot-testing formulas that are then forced onto the land (whether that forcing requires a lot of earthmoving or not.)
In short, the art is not about representing/recreating the forms of nature most suited to our golfing needs, but about interpreting natural forms to see what they might be suggesting to us about those very needs.
As I noted earlier, I find it interesting that an architect who’s become famous for trying to truly honour the land has also been criticized recently for producing some courses that are boring, or at least boring-looking. Without agreeing that those courses are in fact boring, I’d still ask how it could be otherwise? What I mean is, if one aims to humbly honour a specific site’s meaning and essence by interpreting it to our needs instead of imposing our needs on it, it seems a given that on some natural sites that unique meaning and essence, remaining almost wholly in tact, will not serve our established needs and wants as well as it otherwise might. But then I’d ask, so what? And I’d ask, is not what we might be losing more than outweighed by what we are definitely gaining, i.e. a truer experience of nature (while still playing our game)? And I think that what we also might gain is the subtle and mysterious experience of participating in and interacting with nature as it exists for its own sake. I know it’s a matter of personal preference, but I want that experience, and it’s important to me.
But that brings us to another of Behr’s concepts that I can’t claim to understand but that is important and meaningful to me, i.e. “the game mind of man”, which I take to refer to our general – and across the board – unwillingness to actually and truly interact with and participate in the natural world as it exists independently of us, and to our pervasive desire to try instead to dominate and conquer it as part of our competitive/gaming desires. Maybe (to borrow from Adam Clayman) it really does come down to Ego; maybe it comes down to Pride. Either way, I can’t help but feel that we live most of the time with blinders on, and in our own heads, and trying to use people and things for our own needs, and that this is what Behr might be addressing when he speaks about golf (and fly fishing) as sports instead of as games, i.e. as experiences that can potentially require of us a fuller and truer and healthier participation, and by our whole beings at that.
And still the question remains, can golf course architecture serve in some small way to create experiences that help us to set aside, at least for a few hours, that all pervasive “game mind”, and to see and appreciate nature for what it is, and for what it means, in and of itself. Can the architect lead us along the way through his interpretations of nature, or must he simply follow us in our needs and wants through a representation of nature?
Well – that’s it Lloyd, and much longer than I intended. If you’ve managed to get down to the end, thanks. This is what I meant in my first two posts. Please understand, I don’t mean to try to convince you of anything; I just wanted to try to communicate as clearly as I can what I’m presently thinking and feeling about this subject.
Peter