Perhaps The Walt Disney Company is the finest example of a truly American major corporation that continues to exist and prosper today.
After Walt Disney passed away in late 1966, the heirs to his throne were left saddened and confused, and weren't even sure things could continue. It was in a sketch recovered from a trash can in Walt's office that a new dream was born, but it wasn't long before it was determined impossible. If Walt Disney hadn't been there to guide Walt Disney's dreams, rest assured the men of lesser conviction that surrounded the entertainment industry during the first half of the twentieth century would have been eager to shut them down. There would be no animated feature film, no theme parks, no television as we know it today.
Often referenced in the literature as "Walt's Last Dream", the city called EPCOT would have transformed central Florida and the entire world. It went far beyond "forward". It was to be a new example and a way for Walt to transform his audience into the community of tomorrow. In short, what was being attempted was to transform society itself. Walt clearly thought he had the right ideas about the future, and certainly he had the track record to prove it.
In the end, EPCOT would never happen. The logistics overwhelmed those left behind to achieve the dream, in every respect of the word. That isn't meant as a negative comment: they had overwhelmed Walt Disney himself, as his numerous nervous breakdowns and physical ailments and constant stress treatments (provided by the Studio nurse, Hazel George, at the end of each day) can attest.
Yet, something had to be done. The ring leaders of the next great dream, more so than any of the other equally talented Imagineers, were John Hench and Marty Sklar. They understood what Walt had wanted to do with EPCOT, but they also knew that without him the entire company was failing and faltering in ways that had never been expected. They didn't have the creative ability, the logistical ability, or the finances to go about creating a massive city in the heart of Central Florida.
What they did have was the ability to translate the ideas and concepts into a new concept in themed entertainment.
Or was it so new?
Here enters our story the strange and wonderful personages of two visionaries of the early-mid twentieth century that helped shape the project that was to revolutionize Disney as a brand, and themed entertainment as an art form.
First, we have Ray Bradbury. This science fiction writer, responsible for the creation of Farenheit 451, came onto the EPCOT project even before some of the in-house designers were placed. He created what was to become a prototype script for Spaceship Earth.
Spaceship Earth is EPCOT Center's "Thesis" attraction. This was the first time a single attraction in a themed environment had been used to set the stage for every other piece of the story the guests would experience once they moved into the park itself.
While Bradbury created the metaphors and concepts that played out inside Spaceship Earth, the name itself and the exterior came primarily from the works of architect and visionary Richard Buckminster Fuller. Fuller was a man of broad and engaging concepts. In his lifetime, he created such far reaching concepts as Fuel Efficient cars, the energy independent house, and most importantly to our story today, the Geodesic Dome.
Fuller also wrote two heavily influential works on the future of humanity and the planet, and our overuse of resources. The first was entitled The World Game, and was released in 1961. Fuller's definition was:
"make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological damage or disadvantage to anyone."
The second work was titled An Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, and described the Earth as a vessel in motion in outerspace. The vessel has a finite collection of resources that cannot be restocked. The book also makes the point that a spaceship is a mechanical entity, and if we fail to provide it maintenance it will break down and suffer.
Both of these concepts played into the creation of Spaceship Earth, though not before they influenced the place that was a prototype of EPCOT Center: The 1939 New York World's Fair in Flushing Meadows, New York.
EPCOT Center, the original theme park incarnation of what has become Epcot, was a park founded on big ideas. Here, guests were going to immerse themselves not in the world of fantasy, but in a world of science and reality. Epcot of today is the saddest example we have of Walt Disney World's growing management issues. Imagineers seem to be far away creatures, and their wonderful creative leadership seems to have less control over what happens in and around Walt Disney World than ever before.
So, as Fuller was responsible for the exterior and Bradbury planted the seed for the show inside, it was legendary Imagineer and color expert John Hench that solved the pavilion's biggest problem. Up until 1979, no one had ever attempted to construct a building as a full sphere. The engineers told Hench and his team that doing such a thing would be impossible. Hench solved the problem by treating the sphere as two separate but unequal halves.
The upper 3/4 of Spaceship Earth itself thereby sits on a table, the legs of which extend down and out of the sphere as the iconic structural supports. The lower quarter of the pavilion is actually suspended from the bottom of this table. This creates an equal distribution of weight.
With the pavilion's design problems solved, it was only a matter of time before the entire EPCOT Center project would push themed entertainment forward into a new era.
The major difference between EPCOT and the parks that came before it is essentially the "Spokes of the Wheel" model. EPCOT was the first theme park to be designed as an open, free-flowing experience. Much like an American World's Fair, the park spans out from a central object but it does not follow a pattern.
For that matter, it also does not follow any sort of thematic map. We are introduced instead to a prototype model of the world, where we experience different varieties of science, imagination, industry and nature in a free flow format that takes us through gardens and across visually simple yet stunning structures to the next experience. The story being told is that of the world, so Epcot was originally allowed to occupy space in the real world, and the separation Walt and his team so sought with Disneyland and, later, his predecessors sought with Magic Kingdom Park, here that separation was given a rest.
Spaceship Earth still stands sentinel over an optimistic vision of the future of our world. Today, we also continue our journey aboard (and inside) Spaceship Earth, albeit in a somewhat altered form from its original incarnation.
No comments:
Post a Comment