This is a fantastic interview. I love the history of her family, her ability to mention mistakes made in the parks by her, her fear of fan reactions, her love for the parks. Worth a read. Makes me proud to be a Disneyland fan.
Here's a highlight for me:
Here's a highlight for me:
She appears relieved, for instance, when casually mentioning that requests over the decades to make Sleeping Beauty Castle larger were deemed impossible without irrevocably damaging its structure. And when asked whether there’s anything she’s touched that hasn’t been mentioned, instead of singling out a project or highlighting a fellow Imagineer, she stops to offer an apology.
In 2014, Irvine was tasked with expanding and remodeling the costly members-only Club 33; as part of that change, a quiet, serene and elegantly designed alcove in New Orleans Square, the Court of Angels, was closed off to regular guests. It was a move viewed by regulars as Disney catering to big spenders, forgetting that ordinary parkgoers need a place to sit and relax — or even propose — away from nosy, cheering crowds.
“There’s always been a part of me that felt badly about taking anything away,” Irvine says. “Taking away that Angels courtyard from our guests was really hard. It was a decision that was made, and I just had to try and make the best of it with the design of the doors and everything. That is something we try to never, ever do — to take a place that was theirs and turn it into something that they can no longer go to.”
Irvine is still working on a compromise. Though not ready to discuss it yet, she says, “we’re working on something right now.”
It’s a further sign that her goal of making sure Disney never loses sight of where it’s been won’t be finished when the tarps come off the castle.
“If I'm at the table,” Irvine says of business decisions that don’t feel right to her, she believes she can find a middle ground by reasoning. “‘I understand what you're trying to get, but that that doesn't fit in our story.’ We have to stay within the original intent. That was always [Hench’s] mantra. You can change things, update things, make them more relevant, but always with the original intent.
“Don't forget those stories. Those are all laid out for you. It's so simple, really.”
A brighter Sleeping Beauty's Castle is just one way Kim Irvine keeps the magic in Disneyland
Here’s how deep Kim Irvine’s connections are to Disneyland: About three years before she started working for Walt Disney Imagineering, the creative arm of the company responsible for theme park experiences, the then-15-year-old simply wanted her mother to stop embarrassing her.
www.latimes.com