
Conceived by Walt Disney's
corporate successors as the viable alternative to
EPCOT, the city
, and pieced together from countless concept
proposals over a six year period that preceded its
construction, EPCOT Center (later Epcot) opened its
gates to Walt Disney World visitors on October 1, 1982.
Initially the project was going to be constructed in
separate and non-adjacent phases, with the first
version of World Showcase destined for a site near the
Transportation & Ticket Center, and a later EPCOT
(including an EPCOT institute and "Future World
Theme Center") installation planned for a site closer to
where the final, conjoined version was erected. The
groundbreaking took place October 1, 1979. By that time the final
iteration had been determined; visitors would be treated to both
internationally-themed diversions and glimpses into the future in a sprawling
figure-eight spatial arrangement that defied all sense and logic.
Walt Disney's EPCOT was primarily of one man's
drive and clear vision, aided by a staff under his direct
counsel. In stark contrast, EPCOT Center was in
every sense the end result of the committee approach.
Rather than being overtly unified in its general
presentation, it spoke to a vaguely interlocked sense
of brightness and optimism through a smattering of
pavilions that, as independent units, carried the
diverse imprints of their respective designers. This
approach worked more cohesively in settings such as
New Orleans Square or Main Street, USA - where the
separate attractions tied in more fluidly with the
underlying themes of their "host" land, which in turn
connected to each other in a nearly seamless manner. At EPCOT Center the stage was
set more loosely. The pavilions of Future World and countries of
World Showcase stood apart as monolithic entities which, in spite of
efforts to make them complementary, ultimately looked detached from one
another because they were divided by open plots of land where future
pavilions were slated to rise. The same was true in the Future World
area, which had all the coziness of a World's Fair. This should not
have surprised anyone, because all of WED's principle designers were
either contributors to or disciples of the 1964-1965 World's Fair in New
York, for which Walt Disney Productions had provided four major
attractions and from which it drew key inspiration that would lead to many
of EPCOT Center's "new" attractions and exhibits.
If all
of this made the park feel more impersonal, several of its main attractions managed to
rise above that pervasive coolness and engage guests in genuinely fun and
sometimes even
educational experiences. Horizons, for one, fully embodied the spirit of the "family of man" looking
forward to a bright and increasingly interconnected future in spite of physical
distance. Even if you knew it was just an elaboration on General Motors'
1964 Futurama ride (from the aforementioned World's Fair), you had to appreciate its expert execution.
When it opened in 1983, Horizons seemed to suggest the direction in which Epcot was headed.
With Horizons now gone and the thrill ride Mission Space in its stead, we see that
was not to be.
As unfortunate as the loss of Horizons was, the park's ultimate shortcoming has been its
ineffectuality. Jokes about how the Magic Kingdom's Tomorrowland was always becoming "Todayland"
had been told years before the company decided to set the future in concrete on an
even larger scale with EPCOT Center's Future World. To lend it a sense of immediacy
would have required constant revisions to its major pavilions - not just to the exhibits
that revolved around corporate sponsors. By 2002 Future World had become a
convenient place to build anything that might bring people into the park, even
if the additions had nothing to with the future ... and increasingly they (Soarin', The Seas with
Nemo and Friends) have not. An even greater effort would have been
needed to infuse World Showcase with anything more than travelogue safeness. So
the entire park was peppered with built-in time bombs (after the massive 1989
oil spill from the Exxon tanker Valdez, the Universe of
Energy's film footage of "Majestic Port Valdez" caused lots of eye-rolling;
after that same year's Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing, Wonders of China's
depiction of a
peaceful Tiananmen Square - especially in 1989 and 1990, seemed gruesomely
oblivious) that could
only be defused with militant upkeep. That didn't happen, and it resulted in the
park's inability to truly fulfill any mission beyond that of providing
entertainment.
In spite of its current
failings, no one could have loved Epcot much more than my brother Brian
and I did from our first visit on opening day up through the early 1990s,
before a sweep of drastic changes began creating the park that visitors
encounter today. The first three years, in particular, were
genuinely captivating for us and many others who were fortunate enough to
enjoy the park in its infancy. It is that sense of excitement that
WYW seeks to honor.
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Epcot Center
Altered WDW Theme Park
Located:
Roughly at center of
WDW
property
Opened: October 1, 1982
Contributing
Disney Personnel
and outside consultants:
Marc Davis,
Claude Coats,
Harper Goff,
Tony Baxter,
John DeCuir Jr.,
George McGinnis,
Ray Bradbury,
Alex Haley,
Ward Kimball,
Barry Braverman,
Marty Sklar,
John Hench,
hundreds of others
Descendant of:
1964-1965 World's Fair
Related Internal Sites:
EPCOT Center Index
Extinctions:
Communicore
The
Kitchen Kabaret
World of
Motion
WYW's Epcot
Index
All photos copyright
The Walt Disney
Company. Text 2011 by
Mike Lee
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