I agree with much of what you said; I think we also agree that projects such as the Wilderness Lodge and others (let's put Animal Kingdom Lodge in that category as well), while based on some sort of real-world inspiration, take that inspiration and turn it into something more.
The new hub and Comminucore Hall simply fail to achieve that level of excellence, that intangible but easily recognizable feeling of fantasy, escape, immersion, quality and detail the company promises and guests deserve. The WL, AKL, Pandora, Main Street USA, New Orleans Square, World Showcase and other projects are all romanticized and hyperrealized. That's the difference. Communicore Hall and the new hub only meet the very low bar of achieving what the guest can easily find elsewhere, be it a revitalized downtown core, a recreation center activity room, a hospital cafeteria, or a college campus student union. There is nothing about the end result that takes the ordinary and exceeds expectations. (The revitalized front entrance and LED light installation on Spaceship Earth are the exceptions of course as the wide consensus is that these were well executed.) It also fails badly on the utilitarian front, replacing wide vistas and orderly traffic flow with confusion and discord. The more historically recent additions of whirlygigs, pin trading and shade triangles may have added clutter but the original utilitarian intent of the space remained intact. Ironically, the discordant nature of the new hub matches the theme of the new (former) Future World perfectly in that it makes clear to the guest that there is no theme.
To be clear, I am not criticizing the architects who did the design work on behalf of the client, and I am not fixated on whether Barbara Bouza or Gensler did the work. The criticism lies with whoever approved the concepts in the first place. It's my fascination with the who and why that has me asking where the desire for that design influence came from, how decisions were made regarding the design, who approved it and why.
Someone keeps directing the modern design efforts of the company toward the bland and commonplace and that's what I am trying to understand.
