A celebration of life is being held Friday at 11 am at Trinity St. Paul’s Church in Toronto for architect Eberhard Zeidler, who died in January at the age of 96.
One of our country’s most respected and accomplished architects, Eb Zeidler had close ties to our city and to golf in these parts. He was not a golf course architect, but among his many Peterborough projects in the middle of the last century was Peterborough Golf and Country Club’s third clubhouse (1959), its first to incorporate a curling rink.
Zeidler’s wife Jane was the daughter of accomplished amateur golfer Robert Abbott who captained the Yale University golf team, won the NCAA championships, won our club championship 13 times and finished second a remarkable nine more times. With the exception of Bob Jamieson, no other local golfer’s resume matches Abbott’s.
Much of Zeidler’s design work was in Toronto. His credits include the Eaton Center and Ontario Place and such health care landmarks as the atrium at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and McMaster Health Sciences Center in Hamilton.
Locally, it seems like he designed most of the churches built in the 1950s and 1960s, including St. Barnabas in the north end and the Beth Israel Synagogue near the hospital. The Memorial Center was also his work, as was the coolest house ever built in this town, the Cherney House at 99 Roper Ave.
So why write about Eb Zeidler instead of Donald Ross or Alister Mackenzie? Because golf friends often ask about golf course architecture.
What makes a Stanley Thompson course a Stanley Thompson course? Why do you love Royal Dornoch so much that you can’t seem to stop writing about it?
While I have go-to answers for those questions by describing the telltale bunker style or green complexes of a particular designer, I now prefer the comparison between, say, Dornoch and a great house.
It’s a visual thing. Through your eyes you feel it in your bones when you are in the presence of great design. There’s a reason that many older homes on some streets in this city are so admired. Your eyes don’t lie.
When you look at a building from the street you take in such things as balance, proportion, scale. Do the size of the columns look like they are there to support the structure, not just play some pretend function?
The proportion of a front or side of a house that is windows — your eye knows when it’s right. What your eyes and brain find most appealing are the simple things I mentioned above, that are the work of a seasoned architect. The right sized front entranceway. Same with golf.
Next time you stand on the tee during an off-season golf trip to Myrtle Beach or someplace in Europe, think about how the course makes you feel.
Does it make you feel tiny (bad), like a giant (also bad), or just right? Do the holes unfold in front of you in an understandable and rhythmic way?
Does it look natural, like a man had a hand in it, but that much of it seems to follow universal themes associated with beauty. A good first step to understanding great golf course design is to think about your favorite holes and go a layer or two deeper in asking yourself what’s so special about those holes.
If you love and appreciate golf you have it in your heart and mind to feel the same way about course architecture. It’s worth the effort. Nothing beats the feeling of playing a well-designed hole well. I’m not sure Eb Zeidler golfed, but I would bet my life that if you plunked him on the sixth tee at Royal Dornoch he would immediately recognize its greatness.
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