Well at least I was there and lived it which makes me...
Remember that Building a Dream is a Disney authorized and sanctioned volume on Disney architecture. Of course it's going to paint Disney in a positive light considering Disney probably had final draft approval.
What "Building a Dream" says is that to get Tishman Hotels to agree to cancel the first contract, Disney agreed to give them a better location than they originally had, so long as Disney got to design to hotels. Note that Tishman Hotels is who actually owns the Swan and the Dolphin.
My mistake - Terramark is a construction company and I simply confused the name.
I too have read Building a Dream but it's account glosses over major points such as the lawsuit. From Disney War:
"Tishman responded to Disney's decision by filing a $300MM suit against Disney for breach of contract and asking for an additional $1B in punitive damages. Since Disney was on shaky legal ground - it seemed a clear-cut breach of contract - it feel to Green to negotiate a complex hotel deal as the basis for a settlement of the case, in which Disney agreed that Tishman would still own two new hotels and offered him a choice site adjacent to Epcot. Tishman could also set the construction budget as long as Disney determined the design and service standards, an inherent contradiction but one that left utlimate control to Eisner." (pg 76)
According to "Building a Dream," Eisner wanted Michael Graves and Robert Venturi to work together. There's a funny quote where, when Graves found out about this idea, he asked Eisner if that wasn't something like asking Spielberg and Lucas to make a film together, and Eisner answered he had done that very thing at Paramount! ("Raiders of the Lost Ark."). When Graves and Venturi met, though, Venturi said he didn't want to work together, he wanted a contest. Graves agreed.
According to "Building a Dream," both designers (along with the designer of the original hotel, whoc was also allowed to compete) were given rules about the height of the hotel, but in the end Graves decided to ignore them. Eisner eventually came around to the idea of them being visible from inside Epcot and went with Grave's design--that wasn't something that surprised Eisner after they were built (say what you want about Eisner, he's not a complete idiot).
Yes - not disputed. In the end it was Eisner's decision and he chose Graves just as I said.
However it is a fact that once the hotels were built Eisner and family visited Epoct and his wife complained about the visibility of the hotels. Eisner had overriden Imagineering when they were doing their site survey and floating balloons. He told them it was unnnecessary over the objections of Marty Sklar among others (recounted in an interview by Marty). Eisner asked Disney Imagineering what could be done and the answer was tear them down. Eisner asked about building a berm which the Imagineers showed him that to be tall enough to block the view was infeasible. This version has been published at least two to three times and never denied by Eisner or Graves.[/QUOTE]
Graves is on record saying he picked out the color schemes for both hotels. He diesgned the light fixtures, the chairs in the restaurants, etc. He designed almost eveything in the hotels.
I'm not sure of your point, but it does illustrate why you shouldn't have architects designing interiors. I saw it with my own eyes and it was hideous. The floor looked like someone had puked orange and yellow on top of a cranberry carpet. The walls had contrasting colors which litterally made you sick. We had a small but constant stream of complaints into CRO about the decor. It was a well known joke on property and more than a few CM friends of mine went to see it with their own eyes and weren't disappointed. After six months they remodeled the lobby to tone it down and it still wasn't enough. If only Disney had gotten enough complaints...
That is absurd. Come on! Designed to be removed quickly? Tearing off the top of the hotel? No way.
It's not as far fetched as you believe. Remember that the bottom floors containing the meeting rooms, lobby, restaurents, etc. were built in place. A steel lattice work was built atop that structure which houses the hallways, stairways, and elevator shafts. The rooms were built off site and shipped to the site complete. The rooms were then raised and plugged into the locations.
I'm guessing your issue is practicality and not possibility. Feasibility studies are charged with first discovering what's possible. It is entirely possible to remove the middle floors of a building in order to lower it's height - it's been done before. Depending on the location, value, and desire I can see how it could be seen as practical if the leadership felt strongly enough about the visibility destroying the illusion in the park.
That's why CMs are such unreliable sources for Disney history. You ever heard the one about the Contemporary being designed so that all the rooms could be taken out, trucked to a different location, so they can be redecorated? That story doesn't make a lick of sense, and has be debunked by John Hench, and yet Jim Hill wrote it on his site, and when I e-mailed him about it, he said that Admiral Joe Fowler himself told him that story! Anyway, in "Building a Dream" the story quotes Graves himself, as well as Wing Chao and others who were right there. Probably some of the details as regards the legal wranglings may never be completely transparent.
I have to disagree with you entirely discounting all CM's as poor sources of Disney history. The reality is that they are a treasure trove of Disney history. True they aren't privy to the major decisions and therefore are a 3rd party source, but being there as part of the organization puts them heads and tails above anyone who's read a couple of books and thinks they know everything. Your flawed assumption is that just because someone is material to a discusion that they recount it factually. That would be to suppose they didn't have an agenda, at a minimum to paint themselves in a positive light.
"Building a Dream" is not the only published account, and I'd call it very suspect because of it's ties directly back to Disney. Everyone in media is well aware of the power of Disney to lockout those who are not complimentary. In 1990 the Orlando Sentinel published a story about Disney that Disney didn't like. The next day every single Orlando Sentinel dispenser on property was GONE! I was there, saw it with my own eyes. Only after a quasi-apology was published were the dispensers returned.
Oh, and I'd hardly call Adm Joe Fowler just a CM! I never heard the one about the Contemporary but it's a dramatically different scenario than the Swan and Dolphin. However the issue is what is possible versus what will happen. Would that scenario be possible? Yes. Is it likely to happen? No, in large part because there are more cost effective ways to redecorate the hotel.
(sorry, inside joke)
