I miss that too!
The Communicore buildings seem to engender similar opinions. No matter your opinion though, I think its clear that the current design scheme of the Innoventions area (if there even is one) isn't cutting it these days. The buildings desperately need a proper, cohesive paint job, stripping away of the assorted 90's and 00's clutter and adornments, and a complementary landscape and lighting package. And get those windows uncovered. Boring and simple will always look better than messy and chaotic. Stop trying to mask their architecture or turn the buildings into something they're not.
I'll happily take this:
I may be wrong, but my guess is those who think that the 80s architecture is dated-looking never saw the park in the early years.I miss that too!
As an aside, there is a lovely irony in your asking why Disney hates trees and grass so much in response to vintage pictures of the plazas in front of SSE and The Land. Disney has removed trees at SSE. And added them at The Land - the one place where nature is presented more abstracted. Here they lessened the design by too much greenery, by turning the entrance plaza into a veritable jungle. Where they needed trees, they cut them. Where they did not, they added them.
I think much of it is just a matter of simply 'imagineering' for the sake of it. If you think a place is perfectly well designed, well, then there is little for you to add, is there. No work, no opportunity for you to leave your mark over the previous dog's mark.
There is no honour in just mowing the grass, in upkeeping a place. No, you want to rethink it, re-do it, be an EPCOT designer too, have your own little reception and grand (re)opening, fill your resume, have your turn at the helm. It is all perfectly understandabe, but the work is often pointless and the results comical.
That switchable privacy glass you sometimes see installed in fancy hotel bathrooms comes to mind. Click a button and the glass transforms from clear to opaque.
Sadly, it was. The two northern quarters were butchered within a year from late 1993 for the first version of Innoventions. Which was even darker and more confusing than it is today.
Innoventions was a conglomeration of good and awful ideas within WDI and the sponsorships team into a mediocre execution under one umbrella - it was supposed to be smaller than what it turned into, but the individual show exhibits were developed for each sponsor, not together, and over a span of time within WDI. It was executed as one project once green lit, cheaply and quickly without a mandate to try to make anything fit the environment. But there were windows being covered and the building being misused both before and after Innoventions was installed. I'm including the central plaza as part of Communicore's demise, too, and the changes to the central plaza. You get my main point, though.
Without going into detail, there have been discussions on moving LaL and readdressing the entry plaza. It's an on-going discussion.
I miss that too!
As an aside, there is a lovely irony in your asking why Disney hates trees and grass so much in response to vintage pictures of the plazas in front of SSE and The Land. Disney has removed trees at SSE. And added them at The Land - the one place where nature is presented more abstracted. Here they lessened the design by too much greenery, by turning the entrance plaza into a veritable jungle. Where they needed trees, they cut them. Where they did not, they added them.
I mean that the facades were cut midway at the breezeways, in outward appearance all but turning two CC buildings into four InnoVentions buildings with a covered walkway in between.
