Updated edition of “Building a Dream” covers even more of Disney’s world

Jim Hill

13 years ago

Wow. Has it really been 15+ years since Beth Dunlop wrote "Building a Dream: The Art of Disney Architecture" ?

Obviously Disney's world has gotten a whole lot bigger since
1996. Which is why I think it's terrific that Disney Editions recently decided
to revisit Dunlop's book. Doing an extreme makeover, if you will, of this hyper-detailed
look at the architecture of the Disney Parks & Resorts.

So how does this completely redesigned & updated version
of "Building a Dream" compare to the 1996 original? This Welcome Book has the exact
same strengths of the Harry N. Abrams edition, in that it marries strong imagery
with some very insightful stories as to why various buildings around the
Resorts turned out the way that they did.

Take – for example – WDW's Dolphin Resort. In explaining why
he designed this 1,514-room hotel to look the way that it does, Michael Graves
isn't exactly shy when it comes to admitting how he really feels about the
Orlando area:

"I had to do something that was an illusion in the muck, in
the swamp that was there in Central Florida. So I designed a mock mountain, but
it went on from there."

Though let's be honest here, folks. When Walt Disney flew
over the part of the Sunshine State in November of 1963, Central Florida was
mostly a swamp. But Walt saw the raw potential in this land. Which is why –
over 18 months – he had Disney representatives purchase 27,400 acres of
swampland, ranchland, and citrus groves for just about $200 an acre.

And over the past 40+ years, the Imagineers have done an
amazing job of clearing away of that sawgrass and cypress and then creating …
Well, places like the Future That Never Was.

Tomorrowland is home to plenty of visual puns. Everything
seems to be bolted down or hinged in places with gigantic pieces of hardware.
There's lots of stainless steel. It's all about yesterday's tomorrow … architecture
guided by a past vision of the future, appealing to the eye and to the mind.

Bob Weis took a far different approach when it came to
designing a look for Disney's Hollywood Studios. Rather than make this theme park
a fantasy version of Hollywood, Weis decided to do everything he could to
ground DHS in reality by selecting …

… iconic Los Angeles landmarks, some still standing and some
already demolished, to "reassemble" on site. Meyer & Holler's Chinese
Theatre (1927), Carl Jules Weyl's Brown Derby (1927), Marcus Miller's Darkroom
camera shop (1938), and Robert V. Derrah's Crossroads of the World (1936) all
were given uses close to their original ones … The entrance to the park was
taken (with a clear resemblance) from the 1935 Pan Pacific Auditorium, which
had been the first big commission of Walter Wurdeman, Charles F. Plummer, and
Welton Becket. Decades later, Becket would become would become the designer of
Walt Disney World's Contemporary Resort.

I will say this much about "Building a Dream" : Sometimes it's
kind of depressing to come across a picture like this. Where you get to see
Disney's Hollywood Studios as it was originally supposed to look. Before
someone decided to drop that BAH (AKA the Big @$$ Hat) in front of the Chinese Theater and
ruin the overall look & design what was arguably the most charming entrance
corridor that the Imagineers have created since the original Main Street,
U.S.A. for Disneyland Park.

Don't get me wrong, folks. It's not like I'm prejudiced when
it comes to BAHs. In the proper setting (like, take – for example – Roy
E. Disney's office at the Walt Disney Animation Studios building in Burbank) …

… I think that they can be quite charming. Just not plopped down
at the end of a carefully scaled, affectionately rendered version of Hollywood
Boulevard.

Getting back to Beth Dunlop's "Building a Dream: The Art of
Disney Architecture" now … Half the fun of paging through this coffee table
book is to seeing the ideas that the Company opted not to go ahead with. Like
Michael Graves' initial take on the Team Disney Building on the Disney Lot in Burbank. Which was originally
supposed to just have a statue of Mickey Mouse in its pediment …

… until, that is, Michael Eisner complained that Graves'
original design for this building made it look too much like a bank. Which is
when the architect opted to swap out Mickey for the Seven Dwarfs.

Conversely, when Japanese architect Arata Isozaki to put
statues of Disney characters on display in the central tower of Orlando's Team Disney
Building …

… only to then have Eisner nix the character statues.
Reportedly because Disney's then-CEO reportedly believed that – by putting the
characters on display inside of the world's largest sundial – it undermined the
Japanese garden feel of this space.

Which isn't to say that Michael didn't like to see the
Disney characters pop up in the structures that he had built during his
architecture patron phase. By that I mean: He loved all of the whimsical
character-based touches that Robert A.M. Stern folded into his design for Walt
Disney World's Casting Center.

But what I liked most about this new, improved version of "Building
a Dream" was how Beth Dunlop addressed the many changes that have happened in
Disney's world since 1996. Be it the Company's $36 million restoration of NYC's
New Amsterdam Theatre (which re-opened on Broadway back in April of 1997) …

… to (looking just a few months down the road here) the
opening of Cars Land at Disney California Adventure Park …

… Dunlop gives you a renewed appreciation of the huge role
that architecture plays in the success of Disney's Parks and Resorts.

So if you'd like to learn more about some of the more intriguing
structures that you'll see in Anaheim, Burbank and Orlando (and let's not
forget about Celebration, FL, Oahu, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Marne-la-Vallee), then
you should definitely spring for a copy of the new, improved version of "Building
a Dream: The Art of Disney Architecture."

Your thoughts?