The New Gilded Age of Architecture

[Mike Hendren]

Have we entered a new era where exterior appearance is paramount?


Bogey

[Ally Mcintosh]

I believe we have.


That said, you can hardly say that Tom Doak’s work at Memorial or St. Emilion shouts out to be seen. I wait to see if St. Patrick’s follows a similar path. I hope so.


But a lot of new courses scream a little too loudly.

[Thomas Dai]

Colour photography, both stills and motion, especially when enhanced, often makes features shout louder than when seen on-location through the naked eye.
And as the likes of 3D, sound and satellite imagery, and all sorts of clever techie stuff, continues to develop ......

Atb

[Steve Lang]

    Not a lot of real photogenic spots at Memorial Park, too flat, best from my March 2020 pics is looking at 15 green from tee, because of slope down to fronting creek left...


Bogey, I guess you're looking at signature hole pics on your phone? 

[John Kirk]

I don't see it as a growing trend in golf architecture.  I see it as an epidemic in society.

[Cal Seifert]

Restoration + instagram influencers drone shots are the combo nowadays for publicity and rise in rankings.

[Peter Pallotta]

Does anyone know if there was an *original* gilded age of architecture?
Did a Paton and Low focus on exterior appearance in renovating Woking?
Did a CBM think a lot about the visuals/aesthetics at NGLA?
Etc

[Niall C]

Peter


The golden age was in large part a reaction to Victorian architecture and a big bit of that was the look. Not everything was about strategy.


Bogey


Yes, I agree.


Niall

[Ira Fishman]

Please share examples that lead to the assertion that this is the new gilded age versus prior courses in the pre-new gilded age. No judgments here; just trying to get a frame of reference.


Thanks,


Ira

[MCirba]

Mike H.,

I don't want to paint with a broad brush, but if I think of much of the general work I've seen in the past 5-10 years my gut reaction is "yeah, that shark's been jumped."

Sexy sells.

[Mark_Fine]

“Restoration” had its run sad to say.  The lack of new “original” designs is forcing the big names back into the redesign area and few will have the time or inclination to do all the research necessary to “restore” old golf courses.  It is much easier to do their own thing and not worry and/or try to figure out what some dead guy did 100 years ago.  Everything goes in cycles but the difference this time is it not just bunkers getting changed and trees taken down, this time original greens are getting blown up and you can never get them back again. 


I have to laugh, on one of the other threads there was a post about a Tillinghast course called Suneagles.  I apologize but I forget who made the post but they said they loved the greens and thought they were exceptional. I don’t think they realize only about half those greens are Tillinghast.  The others were changed by Jim Fazio.  Long story short, I did a Master Plan for a restoration of the course almost 20 years ago.  It was called Ft. Monmouth at the time and people weren’t even 100% sure it was a Tillinghast.  I did a ton of research (and had a lot of help) and in the process we discovered a lot of things including finding an original bound copy of the club’s early history.  The course was originally called Suneagles before being changed to Ft. Monmouth and it was an original Tillie done in the prime of his career.  We got the name changed back and did quite a bit of work on the course restoring some bunkers, adding much needed drainage, removing trees, altering grassing lines,... but never could do all we wanted because it had turned into an army base and budget was a major challenge.  We could only guess at what the greens that were completely changed were like originally.  The were also routing changes as well due to the army base/housing.  No disrespect but I don’t think many architects would take the time these days to figure out the evolution of that design to restore it.  They might be able to get a copy of my research and Master Plan but most don’t feel they need outside help.  It would be much easier to just go in and do their own thing and that is what I see as the trend going forward for a while.  It is mostly going to be a “remodel” era going forward for now. 

[Mike Bodo]

“Restoration” had its run sad to say.  The lack of new “original” designs is forcing the big names back into the redesign area and few will have the time or inclination to do all the research necessary to “restore” old golf courses.  It is much easier to do their own thing and not worry and/or try to figure out what some dead guy did 100 years ago.

There's more than just a shred of truth to what you say. I feel the scales tilting in this direction as well.

[Peter Pallotta]

The golden age was in large part a reaction to Victorian architecture and a big bit of that was the look. Not everything was about strategy.

Niall - if so, and if history tends to repeat itself, this new gilded age is also in part a reaction to what came before. And to Ira’s point, it’s worth trying to think of examples of our generation’s ‘pre-gild’ courses — while safely assuming, I think, that the architects who designed *those* courses weren’t themselves blind to aesthetic charms nor unaware of the importance of the visuals/external appearances.
Which is to say, if Bogey is right, it isn’t the gild itself that’s new but the *kind* of gild, not the relative importance of visuals that marks the difference but the *nature & quality* of those visuals. So:
What kind of gild do we like the most these days?
What visual qualities are winning the big awards right now?

[Mike_Young]

The golden age was in large part a reaction to Victorian architecture and a big bit of that was the look. Not everything was about strategy.

Which is to say, if Bogey is right, it isn’t the gild itself that’s new but the *kind* of gild, not the relative importance of visuals that marks the difference but the *nature & quality* of those visuals. So:
What kind of gild do we like thenes talent in many most these days?
What visual qualities are winning the big awards right now?

The jagged edged bunker for no other reason than looks is the new visual quality that determines architectural talent in many people's minds....a natural jagged edge built in sand that evolves is ok but most others are out of place...IMHO

[Tim_Weiman]

I believe we have.


That said, you can hardly say that Tom Doak’s work at Memorial or St. Emilion shouts out to be seen. I wait to see if St. Patrick’s follows a similar path. I hope so.


But a lot of new courses scream a little too loudly.

Ally,


Based on what I saw on Saturday, Memorial is a course to be played. It is not about eye candy.

[Tom_Doak]

Based on what I saw on Saturday, Memorial is a course to be played. It is not about eye candy.

Neither the City of Houston nor the Astros Foundation have even hiree a photographer to take pictures of the course, other than some aerials of construction progress 


They don't really need to publicize it, it was packed long before it was on TV.


To Ally's point, I am lucky that my courses will get some attention whether I put in the eye candy or not.  But lots of clients want rankings, and that has meant making courses look sexy since back in the 1980's.  I can remember Mr Dye complaining about it.

[Mike Bodo]

To Ally's point, I am lucky that my courses will get some attention whether I put in the eye candy or not.  But lots of clients want rankings, and that has meant making courses look sexy since back in the 1980's.  I can remember Mr Dye complaining about it.

The problem with designing courses with the mindset of what's hot now, is that what's considered sexy or attractive today may not be in vogue 10 - 20 years from now and courses that fall into that category may suffer as a result. The beautiful thing about the golden age archies is that their designs and courses have more than stood the test of time and are as much sought after to play now as they were when they opened for play a century ago. How many courses built from 1950 - 1990 will be revered the same way? Not many, I am guessing. Will places such as Bandon Dunes hold the same allure to the golfing public 50 years from now as it does today? I'm wiling to guess, yes, as will a lot of highly rated courses from the past 30 years.


I suppose the larger question at hand is what types of designs will leave a lasting impression on the game the next few decades? What new can be done from a design perspective that hasn't been thought of already to keep the level of interest and excitement high? That's for those here and others not even in the design profession yet to ponder and figure out. Rest-assured, there will be a paradigm shift, as nothing stays static for long.

[Tom_Doak]

To Ally's point, I am lucky that my courses will get some attention whether I put in the eye candy or not.  But lots of clients want rankings, and that has meant making courses look sexy since back in the 1980's.  I can remember Mr Dye complaining about it.

The problem with designing courses with the mindset of what's hot now, is that what's considered sexy or attractive today may not be in vogue 10 - 20 years from now and courses that fall into that category may suffer as a result. The beautiful thing about the golden age archies is that their designs and courses have more than stood the test of time and are as much sought after to play now as they were when they opened for play a century ago. How many courses built from 1950 - 1990 will be revered the same way? Not many, I am guessing.

Mr Dye wasn't designing with the mindset of what's hot now, nor am I - we just understand that the visuals are important to most raters (and likewise most retail golfers).  But Pete constantly tinkered with the look of his courses and so do I.  One of the appeals of Memorial was to build a different look in a place where the client didn't care about rankings - frilly bunkers don't work well in clay, and of course we didn't build many of them anyway.

[Mike Bodo]

TD, I like how you endearingly refer to Pete Dye as Mr. Dye. That's a heartwarming tribute and homage paid to one of your mentors. It'll be interesting to see if any of your understudies reverently refer to you as Mr. Doak in years to come. That's the ultimate compliment, if you ask me.

[Peter Pallotta]

The phrase ‘eye candy’ always reminds me of an old dear friend who, before he married, used to date *a lot*. One day he got tired of yet another friend chiding him with a variation of the ‘beauty is only skin deep’ line/moral. To which my friend finally said “Yes, it is. But so fu-king what, what isn’t?! *Everything* is ‘only skin deep’. And whatever is *beneath* the skin I really don’t want to see!”
Which is to say: it’s *all* eye-candy — not because nothing else matters, but because ‘the surface’ is all most of us ever get to see, or need to see. Our ‘eyes’ can see no further.
And just like an attractive face is based on the bone structure beneath it, so too does a certain kind of architectural ‘eye candy’ speak of the underlying ‘structures’ of the design, ie the routing and use of natural features and strategy etc.
And I’m convinced that a course that is great *looking* (to me) is also a course that will be great *playing* (for me). And the opposite is true too.

[Sean_A]

I guess my take is a bit different. Courses I like are beautiful to me. Sure, there is an inherent beauty to many well photographed courses I haven't seen in person around the world, but I am attracted to very few of these examples. Meaning there aren't many in which the photos and videos entice me beyond "that's run of the mill nice". Part of the reason is that most of these visual spreads on courses reveal very little about the beauty of playing these courses. We are usually bombarded with macro shots which for me are not very revealing.

One of the courses I have seen from afar which attracts is Llanerch. The course isn't a beauty in terms of stunning visuals, but for "golf" visuals which are easier to translate into how the course plays, I find Llanerch highly attractive.

Ciao

[Thomas Dai]

Where the photo or eye-candy shot is taken from can make a huge difference.

In decades gone by photos were usually taken at tri-pod or eye level height and there were very few big-scene photos unless taken from a high point on a course or occasionally from a 'plane. And they were mostly in black and white.

This hasn't been the case for quite some time now. Height is easily obtained these days and helicopter and now drone photos showing large expanses of green grass mixed with yellow sand, blue water and anything else that happens to look nice like offshore islands, beaches, gullies and mountains and colourful trees seem to be the new norm. And if there is a smoke belching steelworks or chemical plant nearby, take the photo from a different height angle or crop it out. Indeed even making unpleasant looking features disappear can be done easily these days in the photo or video processing.

Toms revised Memorial Park and the recently held Houston Open has been mentioned above. One of the interesting aspects of watching the event on TV was the low level camera work which really highlighted the green complex contouring, the extent of the run-offs and the use of barrancas etc.

Get down low and look at course from there. There's a lot to learn from being low down.

atb

[Tom_Doak]

The phrase ‘eye candy’ always reminds me of an old dear friend who, before he married, used to date *a lot*. One day he got tired of yet another friend chiding him with a variation of the ‘beauty is only skin deep’ line/moral. To which my friend finally said “Yes, it is. But so fu-king what, what isn’t?! *Everything* is ‘only skin deep’. And whatever is *beneath* the skin I really don’t want to see!”
Which is to say: it’s *all* eye-candy — not because nothing else matters, but because ‘the surface’ is all most of us ever get to see, or need to see. Our ‘eyes’ can see no further.
And just like an attractive face is based on the bone structure beneath it, so too does a certain kind of architectural ‘eye candy’ speak of the underlying ‘structures’ of the design, ie the routing and use of natural features and strategy etc.
And I’m convinced that a course that is great *looking* (to me) is also a course that will be great *playing* (for me). And the opposite is true too.

I like this take on the subject.


Bunkers are like makeup - you can wear none or a lot, but to the discerning they only highlight what's underneath.  In the case of golf holes, that's about whether the features of the ground compose an interesting picture, but also how they interact with play.


I agree with your last point, too.  A non-golfer can recognize a beautiful course, just like a child recognizes a beautiful woman.

[Mike Bodo]

Golf is very much like a beautiful mistress to some, if not many of us here, is it fair to say? That being said, most of us want to be seen with the prettiest girl on our arm, until we find something or someone to replace her that's even prettier. Thus, were always looking to upgrade. LOL!

[Tom_Doak]

TD, I like how you endearingly refer to Pete Dye as Mr. Dye. That's a heartwarming tribute and homage paid to one of your mentors. It'll be interesting to see if any of your understudies reverently refer to you as Mr. Doak in years to come. That's the ultimate compliment, if you ask me.

Nobody calls me Mr. Doak because they know I hate it.  Mr. Dye was much the same; everyone on site just called him Pete, including me.  I switched over because I did not want to imply a higher degree of familiarity than I deserved - I didn't spend nearly as much time with him as others did.  And in the bigger scheme I wouldn't call RTJ 'Trent' or Dr. MacKenzie 'Alister'.