Totally agree with this. I think Walt might have been entering a utopian thinking phase before he died. You sometimes see it happen that someone who has done very well in a particular business venture starts trying to solve The Big Problems later in life...generally with much less success than they've been accustomed to.
From a curiosity standpoint, I would like to know what would have happened with Walt's urban planning vision. But I suspect it would not have been very successful. I've said it before, but his early death might have saved his legacy. As it is, we have a beautiful vision that can never be proven a failure, since "only Walt" could have made it work anyway...and we have a youthful, bright-eyed optimist who can never be proven wrong.
That's a much better source of inspiration for the Disney brand and a much better subject for fawning films than a world weary, embittered old man would be.
Perfectly stated. I agree that Walt was going through a sort of utopian phase, and, after a long and successful career and nearing his time to go, was starting to wonder what he could do to address the problems of the world. It's likely for the best of the company (and by extension, for Disney fans) that his proposals were never completed exactly as he envisioned, considering the huge likelihood of failure.
Sounds like we're of the same opinion, Wilt Dasney.
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Second, I don't even want to compare AT ALL the town of Celebration to Walt's vision of the city of EPCOT, they're both places where people live, but other than that, the similarities end there.
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Bringing up Celebration reminds me of something else I wanted mention.
Had it been built, EPCOT City would have been an absolutely massive construction of 1960s modernism, with all of the most modern design and thinking available at the time. At the same time, EPCOT was supposed to be a continuously evolving city, always containing the newest technologies and leading the way in contemporary design. And that would have been great... for the first 15 years or so. How has Disney's record been on upkeep of simple things like AA refurbishments or lightbulb changes? Those are a far cry from the large-scale urban renewal projects, architectural refurbishments and the complex installations of new technologies that EPCOT City would have required. And it's my interpretation that EPCOT City, visually, would have always had to "look" like it was at the pinnacle of modern design, even though it was built in the 1960s. It's easy enough to swap out the furniture and carpets in the Contemporary, or to redress the facade on Spaceship Earth, but to uniformly update the look of an entire
city? Definitely not an expense I see Disney addressing for long.
What's more, in the 1980s, with the introduction of
postmodern architecture and later, new urbanism, there started to be a serious negative reaction to the modernist designs of the 1950s-1970s, which EPCOT City likely would have fallen victim to. One could almost call these anti-modern movements a "revolt" against the thinking which inspired modernist architecture and urban planning, and these new lines of thinking (new urbanism in particular) continue to shape the way we think about design today.
Some more about
new urbanism: After the constuction of Seaside, Florida, a highly successful master-planned community which arguably became the textbook of new urban design, the new urbanists wanted to create another experimental community which followed the same ideals (those being high density residences, small-scale and traditional architecture, streets designed to be walked rather than driven, etc.). Fortunately, arhitecturally-savvy Michael Eisner was happy to oblige. Enter
Celebration, a master-planned new urbanist community built on former WDW property, and which also features quite the collection of postmodern architecture. So in a way, there ARE some similarities between EPCOT City and Celebration. Both were/are/would have been experimental and prototype cities, which accommodated the latest and most progressive thinking available at the time. Except that EPCOT City was 1960s modern design, and Celebration is new urbanist/postmodern.
Believe it or not (and this is pure speculation, so don't believe it if you don't want to), if EPCOT City and Celebration were both built on WDW property and existed today, Celebration would be (and is) the one most discussed among urban planners today. New urbanism continues to shape modern urban thinking and is a very hot topic in city halls everywhere, even several decades after its introduction. I can't tell you how many urban planning presentations and lectures I've been to that discussed Seaside and Celebration (seriously). EPCOT City looked great on paper, and will forever remain a testament to Walt's optimism and brilliant vision, but had it been built in reality, it would have dated badly.
IMO.
