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Opened:
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October
1, 1971 (with the rest of the Magic Kingdom) |
| Origins: |
Walt Disney was
always fascinated with progress and the
promise of the future. The original Tomorrowland
in Disneyland was the first attempt to bring
that vision to life, with Walt's ultimate goal
being the construction of the city of the
future, EPCOT.
Tomorrowland has always had a fundamental design
challenge that no other area of the park shared;
how do you represent the future in a way that
won't appear dated over time? The Disneyland
version of Tomorrowland suffered from this
problem, as did the Magic Kingdom incarnation
when it first opened. Imagineers initially
designed the respective Tomorrowlands as a
vision of what the future would be like, based
on current architectural and technological
trends. The buildings were thus designed to
be cold, stark and monochromatic in keeping
with the movie futurism of the time. Opening
day attractions included a simulation of a
flight to the moon.
Unfortunately, in a few short years the architecture
seemed hopelessly dated and was more reminiscent
of the 1960s than it was of the future. Additionally,
manned space travel was progressing rapidly
and a flight to the moon was no longer the
thrilling sci-fi adventure that it was in
the late 60s. |
| Updates: |
By the 1990s it
was evident that Tomorrowland land needed some
major changes. The challenge was still the
same; how to build a vision of tomorrow that
that won't be obsolete by the time it's completed.
Imagineers came up with a novel solution. Instead
of looking to the future in an effort to predict
what tomorrow will be like, why not look to
the past to see what the visionaries of yesterday
foresaw? And so the redesign of Tomorrowland
began. The result was a science-fantasy
community of the future, where the world of
tomorrow is portrayed not as a stark, cold
vision of technology, but as a
science-fiction
fantasy filled with fanciful spaceships, intergalactic
visitors, and retro "Buck Rogers"-style architecture.
The kinetic sculptures, art deco details and
whimisical touches combine to create a fun-filled
world of tomorrow, or as the Imagineers call
it, "the future that never was". |
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