Walt Disney World is a place that inspires and enlightens, so much so that visits to Walt Disney World typically refresh and invigorate guests. This is the result of the expertise and efforts of thousands of Disney cast members, be they Imagineers who dream and design, helpful front desk clerks who greet guests at the resorts, or skilled landscapers who trim and manicure the acres of land that Walt and his brother Roy worked so hard to acquire.
It is easy, then, to understand why many guests become sentimentally attached to attractions, shops, and resorts. But Disney parks are not museums; they are living, breathing entities that, in Walt's own words, will never be complete “as long as there is imagination left in the world.” But Walt is also quoted as saying, “even the trees will grow; the place will get more beautiful each year.” Quiet areas of understated beauty make Disney parks unique; these fantastic vistas live on in the imaginations of guests long after they return home. Sadly, many of these sublime Disney landscapes have been altered beyond recognition in recent years.
Every structure, every planting, every color at Disney theme parks is chosen with careful deliberation by the talented artists at Imagineering. In his book Designing Disney, John Hench writes, “Imagineers carefully select images essential to each story [they] want to tell in a Disney park.” The unnecessary visual clutter surrounding Spaceship Earth at Epcot detracts from the awe once inspired by this landmark structure. Likewise, the visual “contradiction” at the end of Hollywood Blvd. at the Disney's Hollywood Studios destroys the theme and the ambiance of this park's main thoroughfare.
According to John Hench, Disney guests “engage in a special world of story” when they enter the parks; they feel immersed “within the special world that [Imagineering] created.”. The illusion of Hollywood Blvd., with the serenity of the Chinese Theater Courtyard, was very compelling. Now, however, it is no longer possible to suspend disbelief because, as John Hench writes about the Imagineering philosophy, a “single out-of-place element shatter[s] an artfully constructed story environment.”
By obscuring the Chinese Theater, Imagineering's rules, as John Hench calls them, have been violated and “the background narrative, geography, and historical time period appropriate” to the Studios have been ignored. The once awe-inspiring, reassuring entrances to these landmark Disney parks have been sadly compromised.
As unnecessary as these “additions” to the Parks may have been, nothing is as shocking as a “hubless” Magic Kingdom. Walt Disney felt that Disneyland's hub at the Central Plaza gave “people a lot of space” and “a sense of orientation.” According to John Hench, Imagineers conceived the hub as a “design solution to accommodate guests' decisionmaking.” That leafy oasis of shade surrounded by inviting park benches offered tantalizing views into the other lands of the Magic Kingdom. It also provided a gathering place complete with ample seating and much needed shade.
A 1982 souvenir book entitled Walt Disney World: The First Decade devotes three pages to what it calls “the miracle of the hub.” What is so special about this area of the park? In addition to the practicality of providing “easy access to all areas of the Magic Kingdom,” the hub provides a sense of continuity. Accoring to the guidebook, the goal of the Imagineers was to ensure that “all the elements within a land work together to create a smooth and constant chain of events”; this was provided by the greenery of the hub, a visual break making transitions into each land smooth and seamless.
It's one thing to change and update attractions; it's quite another to physically alter the original design and integrity of the park itself. Now, in the Magic Kingdom of all places, the some of the visual sightlines conflict. The neon lights of Tomorrowland are clearly visible from the Liberty Square riverboat landing; the angular buildings of Tomorrowland restaurants too visible from Main Street and Fantasyland. Worst of all, the actual perspective of Main Street is ruined. The hub provided a leafy transition from turn-of-the-century Main Street to a fairy tale castle.
According to The Imagineering Field Guide ot the Magic Kingdom, the “forced perspective [of Main Street], combined with the depth of the hub beyond the end of the street, opens up a vast and exhilarating vista to the guest entering the park.” Without those trees, Main Street looks much smaller; the castle loses much of its mystique and allure. It literally feels as if the castle has been pulled towards the front of the park. Instead of a far away portal to a land of enchantment, it's been reduced to an immense stone structure from Europe plopped down at the end of a very American street. The sense of balance and proportion is so altered that approaching this lovely castle is no longer inviting or suspenseful.
John Hench believed that “in order to communicate story and character . . . we must always consider the elements of space and time: the spaces through which our guests travel within and between attractions, and the time it takes to do this.” The loss of the hub violates the time-honored hallmark of Imagineering design that “each land relates to others in a noncompetitive way – contradictions that would intrude upon what the story seeks to communicate [are] studiously avoided,” which, according to the official Disney publication Walt Disney World: The First Decade, is an all-important hallmark of Imagineering design principles. The “distant lands of adventure, America's past, fantasy, and the future” no longer seem so distant.
There is no valid excuse for the removal of the hub at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom; this travesty mars one of the most famous, most recognizable, most beloved streets in the world. The entire hub must be replaced, complete with stone benches, lush green grass, flowers, and mature trees with twinkling lights.
It seems that some things should remain immutable in this crazy, upside down world where the only constant is change. There are places, like National Parks, historical monuments, fairy-tale castles, and Disney imagineered landscapes that ought to be protected from the vagaries and fashions of the marketing plans of a disposable culture.
The power of the Disney parks to move and inspire cannot be underestimated: What other man-made structures pull at the heartstrings of so many people worldwide as those created by Disney? These lovely, atmospheric “spots in time” – Epcot's entrance at Spaceship Earth, the Chinese Theater Courtyard, and most importantly, the Magic Kingdom's signature hub – must be restored to their original warmth and integrity in order to fulfill Walt's vision of parks that grow more beautiful with each passing year.
