Dream It! Do It!: My Half-Century Creating Disney S Magic Kingdoms by Martin Sklar

Author:Martin Sklar
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Disney Editions Deluxe, Business, Entertainment & Performing Arts, General
ISBN: 9781423174066
Publisher: Disney Editions
Published: 2013-08-13T07:00:00+00:00

All our energies were now focused on leading the Imagineering staff in the development of hundreds of individual pieces of the project. With the two halves of Epcot now one, John Hench and I, in concert with the team that would operate the Epcot Center, recommended that the Main Entrance be located in the middle—between the Future World and World Showcase areas. That way, the two sections could operate together on the same schedule—or the hours of operation could be changed for each, almost on a daily basis, if necessary. The operations team could also monitor the number of guests entering, and direct them to one side or the other, depending on capacities and wait times for attractions.

Excited by the opportunities that our new scheme presented, we hastened to present it to Card Walker for his approval. I’m not sure I ever saw him more agitated than by our Main Entrance proposal. He immediately tossed away his CEO hat and donned the marketing hat he had worn for so many years at Disney.

“There’s no way we can do this,” Card lectured. “When our guests enter and exit through Future World, our corporate sponsors get two shots at them—coming in, and going out. With your scheme, guests may pass the Future World pavilions only once—or not at all! I’m not going back to Roger Smith or Cliff Garvin (Exxon’s chairman) with this plan—the entrance stays at Spaceship Earth!”

And it did. But by the dawn of the 1990s, with the opening of the “Epcot Resort Area” southwest of the park where two Disney resorts (Yacht Club and Beach Club) and the Dolphin and Swan hotels had become major accommodations, another entrance into Epcot was needed. The so-called Epcot International Gateway, opened in 1990, brings guests directly into the World Showcase area, across from the France pavilion. (A third Disney resort, the Boardwalk Inn, opened in the Epcot Resort Area in 1996.)

A second major controversy erupted over the location of The American Adventure pavilion. On a visit to Washington, D.C., John Hench and I had become enamored with the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum on the National Mall. Designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill to house contemporary art, the building is basically a raised, open circle elevated by four major “piers” with its entry located in the central courtyard. “The central plan,” wrote Paul Goldberger, architecture critic of The New York Times, in 1974, “is not only clear, but also provides a pleasant processional sequence…”

That sequence was exactly what John and I wanted. By placing the pavilion at the entrance to World Showcase and elevating it in a manner similar to the Hirshhorn, we envisioned guests walking under the pavilion and emerging at an overlook into the World Showcase. The conceit was as though America was opening its arms and saying “Welcome!” to all the pavilions of countries around the world.

This concept was a wonderful idea—on paper. But a Disney park is a live community of people and events, and often

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