5 ms·

The Original EPCOT Project: Walt Disney's prototype community

73 points by singold 11y ago

dang 11y ago
Url changed from http://www.messynessychic.com/2014/06/26/that-time-walt-disney-bought-his-own-autonomous-utopian-city-of-the-future/ http://www.messynessychic.com/2014/06/26/that-time-walt-disn..., which points to this.
api 11y ago
I love mid-century futurism. While they did get many things wrong, that's inevitable when you have big ideas and put them forward fearlessly. Whenever I read anything from that era in science, art, architecture, even philosophy, I am often struck by the boldness and fearlessness of it compared to the plodding baby-steps of today. Even today's most "radical" ideas like transhumanism, etc., are really just meek little echoes of ideas from that era. The bold often seem foolish in retrospect when compared to the intellectually timid, since the latter get to avoid being wrong by simply not doing much of anything.
- Animats 11y ago
  Visit China. Maglev trains, new cities from the ground up, giant dams... It's happening.
- kevin_thibedeau 11y ago
  I don't see how they were going to get underground roadways to work two levels deep with the Florida water table and rainfall being what it is. Even if they could keep the water out the tunnels would be perpetually dank and unpleasant.
  - Johnny555 11y ago
    Probably the same way they built the "underground" tunnels beneath all of the Magic Kingdom -- build ground level "tunnels" and build up the ground on top of them.
lucio 11y ago
How much of the DW success is related to the fact that they have municipal jurisdiction over the land, meaning no politic interfering on the park development?
- cookiecaper 11y ago
  Disney and the other big theme parks basically own Orlando. Before they came here, it was a podunk. I don't think they would've gotten much interference from Orlando.
  - dandrews 11y ago
    Podunk? Perhaps, but it was already well positioned for growth. I-4 (runs NE/SW through the state) was yanked over specifically to run through town, and we had that lovely SAC base with the 12,000 foot twin runways that was recently made into a civilian airport. UCF had just been chartered, which has become the second largest university in the country. Disney's a big deal if course - our biggest employer after all - but it's not the whole story here.
- joezydeco 11y ago
  It's a huge part of the park's success. http://land.allears.net/blogs/jackspence/2009/12/reedy_creek_improvement_distri_1.html http://land.allears.net/blogs/jackspence/2009/12/reedy_creek... RCID can, effectively, build a nuclear reactor on the Disney World grounds without any interference from the city, county, or state.
davnicwil 11y ago
I read the article quite rapidly so apologies if this is mentioned, but Disney (the company) actually did launch a planned community, I think it's essentially town-sized, called Celebration. It's near to Disney world in Florida. I visited it about 15 years ago when I believe it was still relatively new. No idea how it turned out, a brief google search reveals it still exists but I can't find anything remarkable reported about it. Seems like a pretty interesting thing though, there must be some stories to tell. If anybody knows of anything, books or articles etc, I'd really appreciate being pointed at them.
- Kinnard 11y ago
  I've been to Celebration. Seems like a very classical(pre-war) American suburb, with Colonial style houses. Looked very nice but it wasn't a "Community of Tomorrow". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebration,_Florida https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebration,_Florida
- cookiecaper 11y ago
  Celebration definitely still exists and it's one of the priciest areas in the Orlando metro. It has a very unique style and is really a beautiful town. There are definite Disney-ish touches, like background music and theme-park-like maps of the area in the downtown, and the locals are definitely Disney fans so you'll see a lot of homes decked out with Mickey Mouse stuff, but for the most part you can't really see the man behind the curtain. Someone could visit Celebration and never know Disney was involved. Celebration is nothing like what Epcot was planned to be. Celebration is your typical new "post-suburban" suburban development with a walkable downtown, apartments above shops, etc., and more classical suburban homes encircling the downtown. Those things have been springing up all over the place over the last 2 decades. Celebration may have been one of the first. Source: live right by Celebration, kid used to go to school there
daviding 11y ago
The over-bearing central planning feel to this at first reminded me of a government and economy system that ol' Walt was probably diametrically opposed to. But then I realized it's just a futurist attempt at the Company Town [1] concept again. Having lived near somewhere like Poundbury [2] before, it's probably no accident that the place felt like an empty theme park. While the architecture is pretty there is something soulless about the place. As mentioned in the article, he was only a couple of months before death by lung cancer, and I think that much of the vision must have been his desire to leave some ideas bigger than rides and cartoons. I don't think the current white picket fenced retired millionaires town of Celebration is what he had in mind at all. EDIT: I'm getting mixed up between 'Celebration' and the newer 'Golden Oaks' Disney development. Golden Oaks looks like physical VR for the wealthy. [3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poundbury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poundbury [3] http://www.disneygoldenoak.com/ http://www.disneygoldenoak.com/
- plonh 11y ago
  Disney was anti-Communist. He wasn't anti-autboritarian. He was rather authoritian.
- hitekker 11y ago
  Completely unrelated: http://www.disneygoldenoak.com/video/ http://www.disneygoldenoak.com/video/ is one of the whitest videos I've ever seen that's not a parody:
  - 11thEarlOfMar 11y ago
    No, actually, that's where the Stepford Wives live.
  - noonespecial 11y ago
    Good lord. I kept waiting for Morlocks to show up and eat some of them. This positively has to be the beginning of an X-Files episode. Then again, I live in an an industrial park behind the rail yard of a plastic factory so from their perspective, I might be a Morlock...
Kinnard 11y ago
This type of effort has a long tradition in the United States going back to many of the original colonies which were founded to be utopias based on the religious beliefs of the founding groups. A 'city on a hill' so to speak. I think this has much of it's roots in the European Renaissance and the European Reformation. But the roots go farther back than that. Pythagoreans attemtped to form an ideal society and the ancient Israelites left Egypt to build a new ideal, sanctified society in the Land of Canaan. You can see the fruits of this all over America, in Zionism, and in the Tech community which envisions Silicon Valley as an Island governed by the future :). Humans just want a nice place to live? Or maybe the end result of history really will be a Utopia? ;) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_upon_a_Hill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_upon_a_Hill [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Harmony,_Indiana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Harmony,_Indiana [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_socialism [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz
- Animats 11y ago
  "in the Tech community which envisions Silicon Valley as an Island governed by the future..." We're not seeing much innovation in housing from the SF tech community. Mostly it's about summoning servants with your phone - Uber, DoorDash, Eat24, HomeJoy, Pure.
  - Agustus 11y ago
    There is no opportunity for innovation in SF, there is so much anti-owner pushes, that owners are holding on until the ROI makes it.
    - eru 11y ago
      Could you please explain what you mean?
      - endlessvoid94 11y ago
        Agustus is referring to the nearly complete suffocation the SF housing situation currently finds itself within. Here's a data-driven post about it: https://medium.com/@sirwart/the-future-of-housing-in-san-francisco-a5d300558a73 https://medium.com/@sirwart/the-future-of-housing-in-san-fra...
kayman 11y ago
It's pretty neat to see Walt's big dreams. In implementation, I'm sure there'd be lot of little issues. For example, if everyone should have a job, where will the retired people go as they retire? What about injured people or people with disabilities. How will people behave if they don't own anything? Will they care about the place the same. Regardless, a great visionary.
Isamu 11y ago
Thank you! I have been wanting to see this EPCOT film again for many years. I saw an excerpt of it at the Walt Disney Story in Disney World in the 70's, and was disappointed at what they made of Epcot later. It's funny, after Walt died it seemed nobody really had the vision to drive the original EPCOT plan forward, or they lacked the ability Walt had to sell the project to the difference sources of financing they needed, and perhaps were unable to sell the project to the rest of the Disney organization. In the end Walt would have had to create a new organization that was prepared to build his vision of a new futuristic community. As it was, the existing Disney organizations were not able to do something so far beyond what they were currently doing. When Epcot was built, the vision of the original EPCOT was swept away ... I felt like I was trying to convince people that this was not at all what Walt envisioned. But of course I was a young kid and nobody listened to me.
brianchesky 11y ago
This was not a "company town" in the way that is being referenced in the comments. It was quite literally a prototype community where residents would only live for about a year. It was primarily funded by other companies to showcase their products and develop R&D labs. Walt's stated goal was to inspire cities around the world to develop their urban centers in this model. Before he died, he said, "I don't believe there's a challenge anywhere in the world that's more important to people everywhere than finding solutions to the problems of our cities." Whether this design would have succeeded is the subject of much debate, though there were many elements that were radical in their time (wedway people mover, airport of the future with oval runway, tiered transportation levels).
- Johnny555 11y ago
  Of course, the problems you solve for a transient resident that's required to be employed (by the company that runs the town) and is only going to spend one year of his/her life there are much different than the problems a real-world city faces. It's easy to make a town that's livable for those that are relatively affluent and relatively young.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

73 points by singold 11y ago

dang 11y ago

Url changed from http://www.messynessychic.com/2014/06/26/that-time-walt-disney-bought-his-own-autonomous-utopian-city-of-the-future/ http://www.messynessychic.com/2014/06/26/that-time-walt-disn..., which points to this.

api 11y ago

I love mid-century futurism. While they did get many things wrong, that's inevitable when you have big ideas and put them forward fearlessly. Whenever I read anything from that era in science, art, architecture, even philosophy, I am often struck by the boldness and fearlessness of it compared to the plodding baby-steps of today. Even today's most "radical" ideas like transhumanism, etc., are really just meek little echoes of ideas from that era. The bold often seem foolish in retrospect when compared to the intellectually timid, since the latter get to avoid being wrong by simply not doing much of anything.

Animats 11y ago
Visit China. Maglev trains, new cities from the ground up, giant dams... It's happening.
kevin_thibedeau 11y ago
I don't see how they were going to get underground roadways to work two levels deep with the Florida water table and rainfall being what it is. Even if they could keep the water out the tunnels would be perpetually dank and unpleasant.
- Johnny555 11y ago
  Probably the same way they built the "underground" tunnels beneath all of the Magic Kingdom -- build ground level "tunnels" and build up the ground on top of them.

lucio 11y ago

How much of the DW success is related to the fact that they have municipal jurisdiction over the land, meaning no politic interfering on the park development?

cookiecaper 11y ago
Disney and the other big theme parks basically own Orlando. Before they came here, it was a podunk. I don't think they would've gotten much interference from Orlando.
- dandrews 11y ago
  Podunk? Perhaps, but it was already well positioned for growth. I-4 (runs NE/SW through the state) was yanked over specifically to run through town, and we had that lovely SAC base with the 12,000 foot twin runways that was recently made into a civilian airport. UCF had just been chartered, which has become the second largest university in the country. Disney's a big deal if course - our biggest employer after all - but it's not the whole story here.
joezydeco 11y ago
It's a huge part of the park's success. http://land.allears.net/blogs/jackspence/2009/12/reedy_creek_improvement_distri_1.html http://land.allears.net/blogs/jackspence/2009/12/reedy_creek... RCID can, effectively, build a nuclear reactor on the Disney World grounds without any interference from the city, county, or state.

davnicwil 11y ago

I read the article quite rapidly so apologies if this is mentioned, but Disney (the company) actually did launch a planned community, I think it's essentially town-sized, called Celebration. It's near to Disney world in Florida. I visited it about 15 years ago when I believe it was still relatively new. No idea how it turned out, a brief google search reveals it still exists but I can't find anything remarkable reported about it. Seems like a pretty interesting thing though, there must be some stories to tell. If anybody knows of anything, books or articles etc, I'd really appreciate being pointed at them.

Kinnard 11y ago
I've been to Celebration. Seems like a very classical(pre-war) American suburb, with Colonial style houses. Looked very nice but it wasn't a "Community of Tomorrow". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebration,_Florida https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebration,_Florida
cookiecaper 11y ago
Celebration definitely still exists and it's one of the priciest areas in the Orlando metro. It has a very unique style and is really a beautiful town. There are definite Disney-ish touches, like background music and theme-park-like maps of the area in the downtown, and the locals are definitely Disney fans so you'll see a lot of homes decked out with Mickey Mouse stuff, but for the most part you can't really see the man behind the curtain. Someone could visit Celebration and never know Disney was involved. Celebration is nothing like what Epcot was planned to be. Celebration is your typical new "post-suburban" suburban development with a walkable downtown, apartments above shops, etc., and more classical suburban homes encircling the downtown. Those things have been springing up all over the place over the last 2 decades. Celebration may have been one of the first. Source: live right by Celebration, kid used to go to school there

daviding 11y ago

The over-bearing central planning feel to this at first reminded me of a government and economy system that ol' Walt was probably diametrically opposed to. But then I realized it's just a futurist attempt at the Company Town [1] concept again. Having lived near somewhere like Poundbury [2] before, it's probably no accident that the place felt like an empty theme park. While the architecture is pretty there is something soulless about the place. As mentioned in the article, he was only a couple of months before death by lung cancer, and I think that much of the vision must have been his desire to leave some ideas bigger than rides and cartoons. I don't think the current white picket fenced retired millionaires town of Celebration is what he had in mind at all. EDIT: I'm getting mixed up between 'Celebration' and the newer 'Golden Oaks' Disney development. Golden Oaks looks like physical VR for the wealthy. [3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poundbury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poundbury [3] http://www.disneygoldenoak.com/ http://www.disneygoldenoak.com/

plonh 11y ago
Disney was anti-Communist. He wasn't anti-autboritarian. He was rather authoritian.
hitekker 11y ago
Completely unrelated: http://www.disneygoldenoak.com/video/ http://www.disneygoldenoak.com/video/ is one of the whitest videos I've ever seen that's not a parody:
- 11thEarlOfMar 11y ago
  No, actually, that's where the Stepford Wives live.
- noonespecial 11y ago
  Good lord. I kept waiting for Morlocks to show up and eat some of them. This positively has to be the beginning of an X-Files episode. Then again, I live in an an industrial park behind the rail yard of a plastic factory so from their perspective, I might be a Morlock...

Kinnard 11y ago

This type of effort has a long tradition in the United States going back to many of the original colonies which were founded to be utopias based on the religious beliefs of the founding groups. A 'city on a hill' so to speak. I think this has much of it's roots in the European Renaissance and the European Reformation. But the roots go farther back than that. Pythagoreans attemtped to form an ideal society and the ancient Israelites left Egypt to build a new ideal, sanctified society in the Land of Canaan. You can see the fruits of this all over America, in Zionism, and in the Tech community which envisions Silicon Valley as an Island governed by the future :). Humans just want a nice place to live? Or maybe the end result of history really will be a Utopia? ;) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_upon_a_Hill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_upon_a_Hill [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Harmony,_Indiana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Harmony,_Indiana [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_socialism [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz

Animats 11y ago
"in the Tech community which envisions Silicon Valley as an Island governed by the future..." We're not seeing much innovation in housing from the SF tech community. Mostly it's about summoning servants with your phone - Uber, DoorDash, Eat24, HomeJoy, Pure.
- Agustus 11y ago
  There is no opportunity for innovation in SF, there is so much anti-owner pushes, that owners are holding on until the ROI makes it.
  - eru 11y ago
    Could you please explain what you mean?
    - endlessvoid94 11y ago
      Agustus is referring to the nearly complete suffocation the SF housing situation currently finds itself within. Here's a data-driven post about it: https://medium.com/@sirwart/the-future-of-housing-in-san-francisco-a5d300558a73 https://medium.com/@sirwart/the-future-of-housing-in-san-fra...

kayman 11y ago

It's pretty neat to see Walt's big dreams. In implementation, I'm sure there'd be lot of little issues. For example, if everyone should have a job, where will the retired people go as they retire? What about injured people or people with disabilities. How will people behave if they don't own anything? Will they care about the place the same. Regardless, a great visionary.

Isamu 11y ago

Thank you! I have been wanting to see this EPCOT film again for many years. I saw an excerpt of it at the Walt Disney Story in Disney World in the 70's, and was disappointed at what they made of Epcot later. It's funny, after Walt died it seemed nobody really had the vision to drive the original EPCOT plan forward, or they lacked the ability Walt had to sell the project to the difference sources of financing they needed, and perhaps were unable to sell the project to the rest of the Disney organization. In the end Walt would have had to create a new organization that was prepared to build his vision of a new futuristic community. As it was, the existing Disney organizations were not able to do something so far beyond what they were currently doing. When Epcot was built, the vision of the original EPCOT was swept away ... I felt like I was trying to convince people that this was not at all what Walt envisioned. But of course I was a young kid and nobody listened to me.

brianchesky 11y ago

This was not a "company town" in the way that is being referenced in the comments. It was quite literally a prototype community where residents would only live for about a year. It was primarily funded by other companies to showcase their products and develop R&D labs. Walt's stated goal was to inspire cities around the world to develop their urban centers in this model. Before he died, he said, "I don't believe there's a challenge anywhere in the world that's more important to people everywhere than finding solutions to the problems of our cities." Whether this design would have succeeded is the subject of much debate, though there were many elements that were radical in their time (wedway people mover, airport of the future with oval runway, tiered transportation levels).

Johnny555 11y ago
Of course, the problems you solve for a transient resident that's required to be employed (by the company that runs the town) and is only going to spend one year of his/her life there are much different than the problems a real-world city faces. It's easy to make a town that's livable for those that are relatively affluent and relatively young.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]