Architecture is best viewed with peripheral vision

[Mark Bourgeois]

?

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks, Mark.

I don't usually look right up into the sun -- that would only blind me to its truest and most valuable properties/qualities.

Peter

[Mark Bourgeois]

Should we trust Suncoast Tour pros on the qualities of the sun?

[Peter Pallotta]

As you know, Mark: the Sun is, as Sun, in and of itself, a constant - it shines its rays equally and without favour upon all. But what I am able to see of those people and places which the Sun illuminates is totally dependent on me, on who I am and where I'm standing; as what you will see is dependent on/filtered through you. To trust Suncoast tour pros to tell you what you should see (by the light of the Sun) would be to deny yourself and your own uniqueness; to mock and devalue the Suncoast tour pro for what they do (or don't) see by the light of that same Sun would verge on the fascistic, or at least a kind of blindness.  I hope this answers your question

Peter 

[Mark Bourgeois]

At some point we no longer see through a glass darkly and feel the powerful urge to look directly at it, to understand the source of our lived experiences.

Yes?

If so: when should that be and how should we do it without losing the ability to see?

[Peter Pallotta]

Mark - in my first post, I was agreeing with you, or at least with what I thought you were suggesting, which struck me as very insightful and interesting, i.e. that the best way to see and understand great architecture was not to look straight at it but instead to focus on its effects/affects, on the ball, on our choices, in terms of penalties and recoveries. etc...in other words, to study architecture through peripheral vision.  (Im surprised folks didn't jump all over this thread; I hope I didn't help dampen the enthusiasm). So, to answer your last question: I think the powerful urge to look directly at it is the mistake; maybe we should fight that urge and instead allow ourselves to experience the architecture more fully, via the peripheral route.

Peter

[Mark Bourgeois]

Peter, your posts are very helpful (surprise) as I didn't understand the meaning of the comment.

So you're saying we should study the effects to judge the cause, to study the shot shape to understand the swing mechanics, that we judge a tree by the fruit it bears?

How would that relate specifically to GCA, both as a lived experience and as a design philosophy or at least principal or two? Does this even involve the designer? Is there anything he can do?

Are you familiar with the concept of positive negative space?

[BCrosby]

"Are you familiar with the concept of positive negative space?"

I have an inkling, but I'm all ears.

This thread brings to mind something Doak said a while back, something to the effect that he designs a hole from the outside in. Most other architects, he figured, designed holes from the inside out.

Bob

[Peter Pallotta]

Mark - I'm all ears re positive negative space too. (I read a thread here a while back on it, but can't grasp it). Again, this subject is all new to me: I was hoping from the thread title that you could explore the (very interesting) subject yourself. But my initial thoughts are these: that the mistake we make and have been making for years (especially around here) is looking at individual architectural features, as if somehow those features were -- in and of themselves -- important and determinative (of quality, of fun, of interest). I'd suggest in fact that this focus on features (by architects and afficianados alike) has probably caused and produced more bad and copy-cat architecture than it has good. (On top of that, the need for new courses to 'open' strong; the bi-weeekly rankings, the top 100 lists; the huge money involved in building and promoting and playing new courses; the glossy photos -- all of these factors further encourage architects and golfers alike to focus on the features, to look straight at them.)  But the truth is that no one really experiences those features in that way, but instead experience and enjoy architecture in terms of effects and affects, in a kind of dialetic in which an individual golfer with certain skills interacts with architectural features on a given day under fluid meteorological and maintenance conditions and with each element (the architectural elements being only one of them) experienced as affects/effects -- as if all around us (on the periphery) as oppossed to directly in front of us.

Peter

[John Kavanaugh]

Steve Wynn has been responsible for the design of some of the best modern architecture of the last 30 years.  He played a large role in the design of Shadow Creek which inspired many of Fazio's later designs.  From Wiki: "Steve Wynn also suffers from the degenerative eye disease retinitis pigmentosa (RP), which cripples night vision and reduces visual ability in the periphery until the sufferer essentially has "tunnel vision." Many people with RP eventually become legally blind."

I can see why Doak takes the opposite position.

[TEPaul]

"This thread brings to mind something Doak said a while back, something to the effect that he designs a hole from the outside in. Most other architects, he figured, designed holes from the inside out."



Bob:

That is a thought and remark I have heard for quite sometime now. My recollection is it is something Bill Coore once told me quite a few years ago. It may seem a bit hard to grapple with and understand.

My sense has been that it may be more appropriate to say that the likes of Coore or Doak "find" holes, or particularly greens, from the outside in while others might find them from the inside out. What could this actually mean in practice? My sense has long been that those who "design" or "find" holes, and particularly greens, from the outside in are actually practicing a form of what some refer to these days as "minimalism."

[Mark Bourgeois]

"Positive negative space" is the leveling of spatial hierarchies. For example, the background of a painting is rendered as equal to the foreground or subject.

In poetry it would be white space and in building architecture it would be the purposeful use of emptiness like that below a cathedral's vaulted ceiling, a message we are very small before the Lord.

I got into this when researching camouflage. In "The Culture of Time and Space," Stephen Kern writes cubism -- which gave birth to camouflage -- and camouflage "shared the basic spatial function of making objects in a field of visual experience of equal constitutive value with their background."

What's the application to GCA of Kern's statement, and how does it relate to this interesting outside-in vs inside-out approach?

[Rich Goodale]

My view is slightly different.  IMHO those who best view architecture have a laser like tunnel vision which allows them to both identify and then separate lines of charm from lines of instinct.

As for lines of cocaine, however, I'll go with the peripheral option, if I'm ever offered that option.......