Some thoughts on Visual Acuity - Visual Overload

[Peter Pallotta]

I walked past a local art gallery today and there was a pretty painting in the window - muted colours, farmland and a barn, with water in the distance and a few sheep.  I looked at it for a while, enjoying its simplicity, and realized yet again that I don't have much of what I call visual acuity. The other way to say it is that I get 'visually overloaded' very easily, e.g. I can't watch a modern action movie in the theatre because the visual stimulation is overwhelming -- there is too much colour, too many quick-cuts/edits, too much information available on the big screen -- and no matter how hard I try I can neither take it all in nor enjoy the experience in the least.  (To put too fine a point on it: a black and white version of My Dinner with Andre, viewed on a 14 inch television, is my ideal).  And I wondered if this lack of visual acuity (or maybe just a slow brain, visually) dictated how I view golf courses/holes, and why I like what I like.  And then I wondered if, in some sense, I'm more like people in the 1920s than I am like people today -- I have a feeling that if you took a few golfers off the course in 1920 and put them in a modern movie theatre to watch, say, Inception, they might get literally sick to their stomachs with the amount of noise and speed and visual imagery thrown at them; they just would not be able to 'see' what we see.  (I read once that the reason the Red Sea is called the Red Sea is because people way back then actually 'saw'' it as red).  I wonder if this is why I like the pictures of the old 'tier two' inland English courses so much -- and maybe this is the same reason that those courses were designed/built that way in the first place; they look like old cardigan sweaters to me.

I'm not sure what I'm asking. I guess I'm wondering if an architect's work and style (and the way you or I respond to it) has a lot more to do with innate visual acuity than we realize.

Peter

[JC Jones]

Senor Pallotta,

I have made a similar comment before.  Many modern courses are, what I call, an assault on the senses.  Each and every tee shot is so visually overwhelming that you feel mentally (or visually) exhausted by the end of the round.  I have, generally, gravitated towards classic courses for the simplicity in their presentation. 

Some of this also has to do, in my opinion, with cadence.  I don't mind a few "let down" holes sprinkled in through the round, just to let my senses come down a little bit.  Having 18 great golf holes is a wonderful thing, but sometimes, too much of a good thing is too much.

The modern courses I have really loved have had 18 great holes but leave you wanting for more when you walk off the 18th green.  Many modern courses I've played leave me done and beat after the 18th green.  Mainly because I am mentally and visually exhausted.  Some classic courses have me feeling that way as well.

[Peter Pallotta]

JC - thanks. Maybe Bill Coore's brain is wired like mine, while Mike Strant's wasn't. In which case, I have overly praised the one and been unduly unappreciative of the other.
Peter

[Jaeger Kovich]

Peter - Is Augusta National a nightmare for you?

I was writing on my site last week about something that Frank Gehry said. He was talking about his idea of what the "mantra of modernism" might be when he came up with the line, "decoration is a sin". His work, which is highly sculptural, is always connected and rooted in the site, and places huge importance on material. While there is so much going on in the way you interact with all of his designs, it is his pure and honest choices of material which create the sense that everything belongs together as form and function.

I found his comments about his architecture very similar to minimalist golf design in its purest form; using the natural existing materials and beauty of a site as the basis for a piece of design. I love the idea of trying connect the experience of the space back to the participant through their relationship with material.

[JC Jones]

JC - thanks. Maybe Bill Coore's brain is wired like mine, while Mike Strant's wasn't. In which case, I have overly praised the one and been unduly unappreciative of the other.
Peter

Interestingly, I have felt as visually overwhelmed on a Coore/Crenshaw course as I have any other modern.

[JNC Lyon]

Do you think there is a pressure on modern architects to overwhelm the senses?  People have shorter attention spans than ever before, partly due to the modern media (including the action movies Peter mentions).  Do architects feel pressure to keep golfers engaged by any means possible?

Jaeger, et al:

Can a course that relies almost exclusively on natural features still be visually overstimulating?  Or is using natural features the best way to avoid overstimulation?

[David Harshbarger]

Here are some photos of one of my favorite courses, this being a shot of the green complex on the par 5 6th at Saratoga Spa:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wamgolf/5165833012/in/set-72157625358657550/

One of the design trends on this course that make it easy on the eyes are the large bunkers with simple outlines.  There is a bunker on the right you can see with a built up front, and this does add visual interest, but it doesn't do so by adding visual clutter. 

[Carl Rogers]

The visual overload and the ultra firm conditions are a problem for the first time visitor to Bandon.

[Tom_Doak]

Visual overload is one thing, but on top of that one could add emotional overload.  I think it is the latter and not the former which makes some of us recognize the value of so-called "breather" holes somewhere in the middle of a particularly exciting course.

[Jaeger Kovich]

Kelly - I think what I'm trying to get at is that I'm finding similarities in the decoration is sin idea. Although its difficult, and understandably so, to understand how his forms always relate back to the site, but you can seen some of his process process in that Sketches movie and he certainly makes it appear to me like they do. What connects the whole thing for me is that the shapes he uses while sometimes appear super complex on the outside, create space inside that makes sense and functions. Dont be scared of the curves! and yes the hair... ouch

As for the materials choices, yes often metal, it is usually just the one, with no paint, no decoration of any sort, that defines both the inside and outside spaces. That sounds pretty minimal to me! I'd say the way the glass picks up with light on his NYC building works great relating to the site with the Hudson and the boats that populate it. Its hard to fit nylon sails and water into building code, but glass works well! As for The Guggenheim, I guess they could have built it out of adobe/stone in the mountains behind, but I like how the single metal choice shapes the entire experience inside and out. Its also kind of a museum/sculpture piece on its own without any extra paint/decoration/tree plantings/flower beds... now compare Augusta National/Isleworth/Trump to Ballyneal/Sandhills/The Old Course.. I think that kinda explains the relationship I made in my mind, as far fetched as it may be!

 I guess my whole thing is really about... could the outside of a building relate to the visual/aesthetic of a hole/course and the inside experience relate to playability, how it functions to create an interesting game? .. and.. that i love the simple concept of not having to import beauty, but finding ways to bring it out with whats already there

JNC - "Or is using natural features the best way to avoid overstimulation?"

 You know that "it feels like its been here forever" feeling?... so ideally, yes.

[JNC Lyon]

Jaeger,

From the photos in Kelly's post, it seems like Gehry's architecture engages in visual overload.  Does this make his buildings (and golf courses like it) inherently unnatural?  To me, nature hits the senses in many ways, but something that is purely natural manages to stimulate the senses without overstimulating them.

Tom Doak,

Does this mean that a course with 18 great holes is not necessarily the ideal golf course?

[Peter Pallotta]

Nice exchange, thanks gents. 

I'm a luddite when it comes to architecture, and untrained, and a manichean -- if a building serves god and/or man, it's good; if it serves careers and/or the almighty dollar, it's bad....bad precisely because it does not serve the function for which the craft was conceived and from which it derives its value (much like a pen that's run out of ink, or an apple tree that never 'apples').

Peter 

[Don_Mahaffey]

Kelly,
I have a hard time absorbing your writings, as I am not schooled in the finer points of architecture, but your comments about tweaking caught my attention. Right now, I'm trying to finish a project where I'm working with interior designers, a building architect, and landscape architecture. For me, the owner’s rep that has morphed into the general contractor, the nonstop tweaking is what drives me crazy. I'm convinced that for most designers, knowing when to say when is very hard. They all have the best intentions, but with so many options, so much information available to them, and so many possible product combinations it’s a never ending second guessing game, and I'm not so sure what was originally designed isn’t the best choice.
They just seem to lack patience, patience to let things come together, and the patience to let the client learn to enjoy what they have done. We live in a world of instant gratification and it has taken over our design professions as well. I fought very hard during the construction of Wolf Point to leave a few holes alone. They were not visually stimulating from the tee, quite bland actually, but as you walked up, they got better and better and better. Those that have played here know the ones. It’s a treat to enter into the unknown instead of always having "it all right there in front of you". Patience to let it unfold, patience to let the subtle forms become not so subtle over time, and patience and fortitude to let those you work for discover the inconspicuous yet sustainable functionality.

[Peter Pallotta]

Just what I was going to write, Kelly -- Don seems to think that he's not a good writer, but I think he COMMUNICATES better than either of us...well, better than me at least.   Don - you hit on something I have seen in my time in flm and television, and also in government, and also in community projects....a lack of PATIENCE...an unwillingness to just take a little extra TIME to do nothing but THINK and PONDER.  And maybe I'm being unfair, but what I see is that this lack of patience comes down to ego and power, i.e. people don't seem to care so much about WHAT the best decision is, as long as THEY are the one's making the decision.

Peter   

[Jaeger Kovich]

Peter - I think if you reword "...an unwillingness..." into "PATIENCE... a willingness to just take a little extra TIME to do nothing but THINK and PONDER", you are working on a pretty good definition of how to create this idea of "quality", which seems to be lacking lots of places in our pre-fab hurry-up and wait world.

Kelly - I think part of what I have done here is try to put a broad label of minimalism on certain parts of what he practices that I have seen. In my mind, where the curves dont bother me!, I see him striping things down to these raw shapes, materials and forms which we are so used to seeing rearranged in other ways, and I just want to make connections to minimalism. I don't get caught up in the technology or engineering argument, we all develop our own tools/process to make our designs possible and have to abide by the rules of physics and zoning. There's plenty of technology that goes into developing fescues, and irrigation. I haven't seen a modern arch march his horse drawn scoops and scrapers around any golf course projects I've been involved with yet!... If you took all the sky scrapers out of Manhattan, you wouldn't have Manhattan, you'd probably still have New Amerstam.

Don't get me wrong, I love my old school stuff. Baraque Rome is my all time favorite, but that stuff focuses on creating this ultimate moment, or climax of emotion. Maybe thats where I'm getting my arguments confused here as well. However I do love my early modernists, the guys who broke the rules, who made art for the sake of art, who learned to stop ornamenting things and finding the beauty in the materials they were already using... (see I'm doing it again!)

I find its really hard to condemn the idea of architecture as sculpture when I play Mac/Raynor/Banks courses. I'd like to hear more about your thoughts on architecture as sculpture. (the guggenheim is a hard example because its a museum)

[Sean_A]

"They were not visually stimulating from the tee, quite bland actually, but as you walked up, they got better and better and better."

Don, I need to play a few games of golf with you.  I think we instinctively feel the same at least about certain aspects of architecture, but in any case you have a lot to teach.

Ciao

[Adam Lawrence]

I think a lot of modern buildings need space around them. They don't fit comfortably into a built environment. Gehry's work I would include in that category, as well as buildings like the Sydney Opera House, or the new Copenhagen Opera. That's why the kind of waterfront sites on which the Bilbao Guggenheim (or either of the two opera houses I cited) sits are good locations for this kind of building.

I don't believe, as does that idiot Charles Windsor, that we need to be hidebound by a sterile vision of 'classicism', however you interpret the word. There is space for innovation in design. But there is a reason that vernacular styles developed and work. One of the problems with a lot of modern building architecture, in my opinion, is a desire to make everything as iconic as possible. Icons need to be the exception, and to have space to breathe. Kind of analogous to the '18 signature holes' mentality in golf?

[Sean_A]

Kelly

Isn't that the Bilbao Gugge?  I am not a fan of the architecture, but still you are correct in that the building doesn't fill the space appropriately.  Although, from the water side the museum is far more attractive and certainly interesting.  Perhaps more disturbing (and I am not a religous person) is the style of architecture hulking at the end of the road - the vista created and the message it imparts. It used to be that spiritually uplifting (literally as well) buildings were reserved for this sort of vista and the prominent positions in the city.  Many famous cathedrals seem to appear from nowhere when turning a corner and draw people to the building - look for pix of the Toledo Cathedral (in fact, Toledo is one of the most under-appreciated cities in Europe).  This museum has the opposite effect in that people may be drawn to the building, but only in the same way people are drawn to car crashes.  In spiritual terms, this architecture is horrific, anti-community (which is incredibly ironinc given its purpose as a museum) and a disconnect with humanity.    

Ciao

[Doug Ralston]

When I went to Alaska as tourist, none of this happened to me. It was stunningly beautiful from day 1, and it never got dull or 'too much' to my eyes/brain. I am certain if I lived there I would still be excited every morning just to get up an look/appreciate.

Everything dies. Life, love, even beauty. But the memories are mine till I do. Perhaps it even trancends all passing?

Nope, never had the 'problem' of a course too beautiful.

Doug

[Tim Liddy]

To me Gehry is all about sculpture and movement. Making a large building look like it is moving is a great achievement in art and architecture (see Mona Lisa). That he does it in many different ways and with different types of forms is even more brilliant.

[Jaeger Kovich]

Kelly - Scale is always relevant, no argument about that, but nowhere does it say if your a minimalist you must work on a small scale. My favorite part about Old Mac is the large scale, and I hear Rock Creek may be even "bigger"... I could walk around just the outside of the Gug all day long and find new interesting things about it, especially as the light and shadow continues to change and hit all the reflective surfaces differently. I would also say the same for most good abstract painting... There is beauty and interesting decisions to question throughout every little corner of the picture. Why this color? Why leave open? How it works in relation to... heres a little Kandinsky, can't imagine you have any on your walls, but I find it super inspiring

[Jaeger Kovich]

Tim - Yes!

Doug - Interesting stuff. I've been trying to think of one hole/location I've been that i thought was too beautiful for golf, but I don't think that is a possibility in my mind.

Adam - Couldn't agree more with the respect to the "classics" in terms of going forward. It seems like most arch/artists who have made significant advancements in their fields are firmly rooted in the lessons of past masters, but have then gone back and stripped everything back down before building it back in their own terms. People forget Picasso was a child prodigy with a brush, he could represent a basket of fruit as well as any super realist, but he chose to invent his own (sorta see Georges Braque) style in order to communicate these new ideas of art... Golf Architects are much the same in terms of traveling and studying courses. The Raynors of the world are much rarer.

[JMEvensky]

KBM,regarding the Gehry Bilbao Museum,isn't it possible that Gehry knew that the building needed more space,but this was all the room he was given?

I guess I'm asking if,like golf course architecture,sometimes the architect just has to play the hand he's dealt as well as possible?Maybe Gehry told them "it will be a better building if you give me that site instead of this one".They said no and he built the best he could build given the constraints.

I don't know--just curious.It doesn't seem far fetched to me that the process in determining the Bilbao Museum site might be the same as any golf course developer.

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks again, gents - engaging discussion.  I can't contribute, except to say I think it's easy to confuse career-success and historical import with genuine usefulness and lasting value.  Does anyone remember the days when drama was meant to be cathartic, and when a dramatic resolution was not just the end of the show but an epiphany? Granted, the Greeks and Shakespeare and O'Niell didn't get it right all the time, but at least they tried.  

Peter

[Lyne Morrison]

Peter an interesting topic.

This article is worth a read - http://www.golfcoursearchitecture.net/Article/Sustainability-by-design/1216/Default.aspx     

“Over a century ago, the pioneering environmentalist George Perkins Marsh said: "Man everywhere is a disturbing agent. Wherever he plants his foot, the harmonies of nature are turned to discords." It is the modern golf course architect's responsibility to tread as lightly as possible when designing a course, and thus hopefully reduce the discord created by the unavoidable 'footprint.' ”

Cheers, Lyne