Repainting of Epcot Central Plaza?

[michmousefan]

So while there's something to be said for what they were perhaps trying to accomplish, I'm not sure the implementation was effective. I think this might largely be due to the color choices; perhaps a more restricted blue to purple palette with the same idea might have been more effective. Or if the "random" color scheme wasn't working out (and that's kind of a trendy design idea too, my own architecture firm plays around with "barcode" paint a lot), maybe a simple gradient between two colors from one side of the plaza to the other would have been simpler and more visually pleasing.

Yeah, at first it feels like somebody walked through a maintenance warehouse and found a bunch of relatively small quantities of paint of various colors and said "we need to find a way to use these up." A gradient or group of shades closer to a single color family would have been better. Right now the look seems to be "party" or "circus" and not "future" or "science" or even "design." I'd still love to see those sun-shades in the plaza removed and replaced with more tall greenery, but I'm sad to say the new color scheme seems to complement the tent-ish pieces. All that's left is for those to be repainted.

 

[ArtieJim]

Looks like a 'smores Pop-Tart. It also reminds me of the hideous unfinished whatever it is near Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ.

 

[Mickey_777]

Call me crazy but I don't think it looks half bad. I dig it. The alternating dark and light colors make for a great contrast with the always "super blue" Florida sky.

 

[Nmoody1]

For the most part I like it.... It brings some color to that large baron and boring space.... But I don't like the random purple... That bit can go!

 

[Slowjack]

Am I the only one that thinks it looks like a semi-modernized take on the medieval-tent look that used to dominate Fantasyland?

 

[Soarin' Over Pgh]

It does have that 'tent' feel to it.

If they're looking to repaint the rest of Epcot, I have several half used gallons of paint in the basement. Ivory, light green, light blue. There might be an eggshell white or two in there. Probably a light purple too.

Free. You haul, Disney.

 

[Communicore]

I think they shoulda done it using the old Tommorowland Terrace (current Cosmic's) color scheme!

 

[bhg469]

Wait... The stripes were on purpose!?!?! This was actually intentional.. Oh what the hell.

 

[Unplugged]

The area needed something as it was so bland and drab. But I have to agree with the "tent" perspective. Not feeling futuristic or even World's Fair-like. The problem with a "tomorrow-land" theme is that as technology progresses, the vision we have of what the future will be like, changes as we approach the future conceived years prior. thus things look dated and rarely if ever will paint fix that. The whole rounded edge style is not futuristic anymore, nor is it "present day", it's remains the future of the past which is essentially what MK:Tomorrow land represents. To truly make provide updates to "future" perspectives would require a great expense of re-skinning that area every 20 years or so. Obviously, they don't design buildings to be skinned as ea easily as an app on your mobile.

 

[ToTBellHop]

I'm definitely scratching my head on this one. I can only hope that it's signalling SOME sort of overall plan to refurbish the entire plaza and that it'll make more sense when it's done, but I really can't fathom a final plan where it would...

-Rob

Just wait til they start painting the Spaceship Earth tiles with each of these colors. Then it will all "make sense."

 

[note2001]

Maybe it's like one of those pictures that were all the rage in mall kiosks in the 90s. If you stare at it long enough in one specific way, you'll see a big 3D picture. Probably a big 3D middle-finger aimed at original Epcot fans!

Oh! You're on to something there. Only looking at the varying sized lines, I think Disney's making a giant multi-colored bar code. What better, cheaper, advertizing than to let the multitudes of park guests snap pics of the buildings which link off to Disney's ad of the day when posted? (partnering up with microsoft)

... what are they doing to the roof? I'm thinking there's a huge QR code being painted up there for Google earth...

 

[Atomicmickey]

I'm going to go against the grain here, and say that while my first impression is bad, I'll wait to see how the whole thing plays out--and maybe until I see it in person--to judge it. It is unconventional, that's for sure.

At first thought, the bands break up the elegant lines. But perhaps this is part of a larger plan to do something different with Future World, that we don't know about, yet. Whether we like it or not remains to be seen but if it's part of a new, integrated vision, then at least it's something.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

My first thought is I hope it looks better in person because the pictures look like a jumbled mess. I think they could have gone 3 ways with this: a contrasting color pallet for a bold look (black and white like piano keys), a complimentary color pallet for a relaxing look (shades of one primary color), or the random color pallet for the jumbled mess look, unfortunately it looks like the picked the jumbled mess look.

Any idea if they are going to keep the walls pink? The pink looks even worse now, I think if they painted the walls a shade of white it would look a lot better, at least none of the colors will clash with the white.

 

[BoarderPhreak]

As long as this "test" doesn't end up looking like this, I'm cool with it...

 

[hpyhnt 1000]

I also understand, to some degree, what WDI was trying to do here: they likely thought the scale of the buildings was too large for human scale, and were trying to figure out a way to break it up and feel more approachable. I think you could argue the Communicore buildings look better from satellite photos or from a distance - say, from the Land building or the World Showcase plaza - than they do when you're standing up next to one. I think the Communicore buildings suffer a little more than most of Epcot for their touch of 1980s brutalism (a movement that emphasized big, unornamented concrete expanses in massive scale, and which isn't looked upon well at all in modern times), and I suspect the Imagineers were trying to move the buildings away from that.

The idea that the building are too large and unapproachable - they only made that worse when they blackened out/covered the windows starting in the 90s. The easiest way to make them more approachable is to uncover the windows and remove all the overgrown foliage.

Yes, the buildings are large and have a lot of exposed concrete, but they also have a ton of windows. Find a way to make the windows windows again instead of treating them like walls.

 

[Lord_Vader]

Oh George.

Always in for a new Bushism.

 

[Lord_Vader]

Ebola is perfect, they can cross promote Ebola and River Country Amoeba!

They should have incorporated the Amoeba with Cranium Command!

 

[mouse_luv]

Looks like a 'smores Pop-Tart. It also reminds me of the hideous unfinished whatever it is near Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ.

Wait... The stripes were on purpose!?!?! This was actually intentional.. Oh what the hell.

Just wait til they start painting the Spaceship Earth tiles with each of these colors. Then it will all "make sense."

All of these sum up my thoughts when I saw the pictures. Well, except for the last quote, but it made me so I couldn't leave it out. I really hope this looks better in person than photos. Otherwise,

 

[Clamman73]

Just wait til they start painting the Spaceship Earth tiles with each of these colors. Then it will all "make sense."

Would hide the dirt buildup on top...

 

[Pacha]

I wonder if it would look better with horizontal stripes rather than vertical. Like moving from lighter on the bottom to darker on top, or vice versa. Something like that anyway. The way it is now just doesn't look or feel right to me.