Tomorrow is the annual AIA Indianapolis Chapter Memorial golf outing. I have been involved with these golf outings for at least the last ten years. "Doing what?" you ask - well I have been the person responsible for designing the T-shirts (Whoa - I almost left the "r" out of the word shirt, hopefully it was not a subliminal message someone was trying to push into my brain).
When I started the golf outing shirts, I was doing cartoons for the AIA and thought it would be a great opportunity to get more exposure. So I did some cartoons that tried to bridge the gap between golfing and architecture - using my Oblique View comic format. Looking back - the cartoons weren't that great - but it was good experience and people enjoyed them (I think). I believed they enjoyed them because; 1. they were different than the previous, mundane golf shirt designs, which were merely plan views of the golf course, and 2. many people didn't realize that the creator of Oblique View, which brought them hours, if not days, of enjoyable water cooler conversation every month, was a fellow Indianapolisosian (how do you like that word?)
The outings back then were called the Frank Lloyd Wright Memorial golf outing - however they never were really associated with FLW. One year, I had a great illustration idea I wanted to explore for LeCorbusier's Modulor man.
So I suggested to the golf committee chairman that we make it a rotating memorial each year. He agreed, naturally, and the rest is history (pun intended). I then became responsible every year for determining which dead architect to honor. This was easy for me to relate to, as I was working in the by Famous Architects books at the time. Since then we have honored the following great architects:
- LeCorbusier
- Mies van der Rohe
- Louis Kahn
- Phillip Johnson
- E. Fay Jones
- Eero Saarinen
- and this year it's Walter Netsch
Walter Netsch is probably the least famous of the group - in fact many architects have never heard of him. But they would all likely recognize his most famous structure - the Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel. His death this year makes him the most famous architect to die in 2008 (so far, anyway). However his obscurity to the general architect population has left me questioning where to go next year - shouldn't the architect have some relavence to Indiana? or shouldn't he be an architect who has had an impact on what we have learned about architecture? These are questions I'm sure you are asking yourself and will likely keep you awake for a couple of weeks. But the truth is - it's just a golf outing, a once a year event for the architects of Indianapolis to get together and enjoy hacking up manicured lawns and guzzle some beer. Next year's architect to be remembered, will be decided next year.
