Designing Disney's Theme Parks: The Architecture of Reassurance [Hardcover]

Karal Ann Marling (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 1998

From the day it opened in July 1955, in an event given live TV coverage, Disneyland has been a key symbol of contemporary American culture. It has been both celebrated and attacked as the ultimate embodiment of consumer society, a harbinger of shopping-mall culture, a symbol of American hegemony in entertainment, the epitome of fantasy, simulation, pastiche, and the blurring of distinctions between reality and mass-media imagery. Yet for all the power of Disneyland as metaphor, almost no one has discussed the making of this unique place, with its far-flung colonies in Florida, Japan, and France. Written to accompany an exhibition at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, Designing Disney's Theme Parks: The Architecture of Reassurance is the first book to look beyond the multiple myths of Disneyland.

Uniting a roster of authors chosen from wide-ranging disciplines, this study is the first to examine the influence of Disneyland on both our built environment and our architectural imagination. Tracing the relationship of the Disney parks to their historical forbears, it charts Disneyland's evolution from one man's personal dream to a multinational enterprise, a process in which the Disney "magic" has moved ever closer to the real world. Editor Karal Ann Marling, Professor of Art History and American Studies at the University of Minnesota, draws upon her pioneering work in the Disney archives to reconstruct and analyze the intentions and strategies behind the parks. She is joined by Marty Sklar, Vice Chairman and Principal Creative Executive of Walt Disney Imagineering, historian Neil Harris, art historian Erika Doss, geographer Yi-Fu Tuan, critic Greil Marcus, and architect Frank Gehry to provide a unique perspective on one of the great post-war American icons.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Karal Ann Marling is Professor of Art History and American Studies, University of Minnesota;
Neil Harris is Professor of History, University of Chicago;
Erika Doss is Professor of Fine Arts, University of Colorado at Boulder;
Yi-Fu Tuan is Professor, Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin;
Greil Marcus is the author of Invisible Republic, Lipstick Traces, and Mystery Train.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Flammarion; 1St Edition edition (February 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 2080136399
• ISBN-13: 978-2080136398
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 1 x 11.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #387,878 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Engaging Thoughts about Disney, January 25, 2001

By 

"disneychick" (Main Street, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Designing Disney's Theme Parks: The Architecture of Reassurance (Hardcover)

Many books on Disney's art and achitecture try to convey its appeal primarily through the visual. Other books, particularly those that whole-heartedly criticize Disney, try to ignore the appeal of Disney altogether. This book attempts to integrate the visual evidence (photos, concept art) with academic writing on Disney (Karal Ann Marling, Erika Doss, Greil Marcus, etc.). Together, these aspects make for a solid inquiry as to the appeal of Disney's architecture.

The book was written to supplement an art exhibit of the same name and, in many ways, feels a bit incomplete without its exhibition, partly because the book tries to cover a lot of territory in its two hundred or so pages. And a lot of the book's pages are used for the essays. But the essays also provide the readers with another "way of seeing" the imagineers' works, something that other books of this type tend to forgoe for more pictures. The essays are irreplaceable for this book--and many are useful for re-examining other books' materials as well (Try it!).

Particularly useful for the Disney enthusiast is the criticism of Disney criticism by Greil Marcus. He astutely summarizes much of the current criticism of Disney: "All [the works mentioned earlier in the essay] have their moments of interest and all devolve quickly into a kind of critical voice that can perhaps best be called spite. This is not a good posture from which to practice criticism--an angry defensiveness, a fear that somehow one's faculties or tools of analysis are not up to the job disguised as contempt for the job itself...." What Marcus calls for is a real attempt to understand Disney for what it is and for how it affects people/American culture, something too few critics have done without falling into an either all-good or all-evil knee-jerk reaction. Worse, many critics make no attempt to experience Disney before making up their minds. This essay is an excellent reminder to those critics and a call to action.

The other essays are interesting and useful, as well. The interview with Frank Gehry seems a bit brief, and perhaps Karal Ann Marling takes too much center stage in the interview (as with the entire book). Still, this book opens the door for an appreciative examination of Disney and one that embraces Disney by attempting a "thick description" of its materiality and appeal. This book will not provide an exhaustive look at Disney's theme parks but it will offer the interested reader materials with which to look at Disney's parks in a new way.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very good book for the serious Disney adict., June 23, 1998

By 

Barrett W. Nichols (Haddam, Ct USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Designing Disney's Theme Parks: The Architecture of Reassurance (Hardcover)

Next to "Gardens of the Walt Disney World resorts" this is the best serious Disney book that I've read. Goes into great detail on the design of the parks. This is for the Disney adict who is interested in architecture and design.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun for Disney fans and academia, August 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Designing Disney's Theme Parks: The Architecture of Reassurance (Hardcover)

A look at the title, and even the opening, might lead one to think this book was written by and for academia. That is not true. You don't need to be an architect or engineer (either mechanical or social!) to enjoy this book. The photos of concept art make it worth the price of the book alone! One could happily treat this purely as a coffee table book. If you decide to read it, you will have to wade through the author's occasionally self-serving analysis, but that is not often. This is a quality book, based on an absolutely amazing traveling exhibit.