The Architecture of Reassurance

Part of this idea of complementarity, or complementariness according to Hench is taking the guests “step by step through a sequence of related experiences. We never jar him, we just lead him along, making the trip as interesting as we know how” (Finch, 1983, p. 411). By coordinating and harmonizing all of the different elements in the environment, people are more at ease and reassured:

By providing a familiar and predictable environment while minimizing the number of distractions or interruptions Disneyland designers intended to reassure customers. In this regard they followed Disney movies very closely. Walt Disney took great pride in his films to emphasize the clear triumph of good over evil. He desired neither ambiguity nor contradiction in his motion pictures, and he resented those arty and academic types who insisted on seeing the darker side of the stories he told. The Anaheim theme park similarly tried to present an undilutedly rosy view of the world; contradiction or confusion were qualities the planners of Disneyland associated with the defective, poorly planned, conventional amusement park. They believed that Disneyland offered an enriched version of the real world, but not an escapist or unreal version. To achieve “Disney realism” they explained, “we program out all the negative, unwanted elements and program in the positive elements.” The result, they insisted was not a distorted reality but a recaptured one: “we’ve taken and purified the statement so it says what it was intended to” asserted John Hench. Disneyland was “much more real” than life in general, it was argued further, because it evoked the truer human nature of the past, before mid-Twentieth Century urban malaise had set in. (Findlay, 1993, pp. 69-70)

Disneyland’s rose-colored vision is a hallmark of its tradition, because this vision allows people to be more expansive and to open up. Hench says: “I think people in Disneyland react and expand very easily. Unlike in society’s modern cities, they can drop their defenses in Disneyland and look other people in the eye. Actually, what we’re selling throughout the park is reassurance” (Bright, 1987, p. 237).

Disneyland’s design, as we have seen is strongly Neptunian. Disneyland was meant to be a different kind of world designed by Disney to be a true place of play. Perhaps play has created a place for itself at Disneyland, by creating a field of care, cooperation, safety and belonging—an environment that allows us to reconnect with the child within us. Marling (1997) describes Disney’s motivation in creating Disneyland this way:

And as an entertainer, a creator of comic characters, a teller of fairy-tale fables meant to resolve the conflicts encountered in the world of toil and trouble, he did not believe for a moment that art—his art, the picture-postcard kind—was obliged to be disturbing, challenging, unsettling. He believed instead that it ought to provide comfort and refuge from that world of woes that he knew at first hand. His park was built behind a berm to protect it from the evils that daily beset humankind on all sides. It aimed to soothe and reassure. It aimed to give pleasure, joy. A flash of sunny happiness . . . the architecture of reassurance. (p. 83)

When Snow White (1937), Disney’s first full length animated film, was attacked by some as a “pathetic escape from reality for people whose morale had been shattered by the great Depression,” the following comments were offered in Snow White’s defense, which apply equally to Disneyland:

Artistic endeavor by definition was transcendent, seeking ‘escape form the stern facts of concrete reality . . . . to a larger reality.’ Others insisted that ‘a temporary opportunity to escape from unpleasant reality” constituted a normal, healthy response that allowed people to rest, gather their emotional resources, and attack their problems with new vigor. (Watts, 1997, p. 161)

The planetary archetype Neptune is also about art, illusion, dissolution of boundaries, fantasy, escape, as well as addiction, delusion, confusion and self-deception. Neptune dissolves boundaries and seeks to reach a transcendent place—a larger transcendent reality. Disneyland is outdoor art and offers a respite. Disneyland is a liminal protected space of carnivalesque communitas, where perhaps we can experience this larger reality that Donaldson's (1993) original play points to, the play beyond categories, and thus use culture to go beyond culture. Keeping the harmonizing principle of complementarity in mind, and Disney’s rose-colored vision, we will move on to our next “C,” color, which is a major way that Disney’s complementarity principle expresses itself.

Color

Hench and Van Pelt (2003) point out that the use of color is especially important as part of the language of vision and in their book, Designing Disney, discuss how color is used to identify the character of the place and time in which the story happens. Color is one of the most convincing components of an attraction’s design; color sets the mood and emotional tone while reinforcing the story’s meaning. Color is used to help guests clarify their decisions by uniquely identifying each attraction with its own custom color scheme. Through different aging techniques, color enhances the illusion of reality. Color also encourages the suspension of disbelief, especially the use of vibrant and contrasting colors. Color supports special effects and helps to evoke emotional responses, and is used to welcome guests, touching them intimately to awaken playfulness and it is also used as play and theater:

Color is intimately related to the human instinct for pretending, for make-believe, that is at the heart of our desire for play and for theater. How we dress, adorn ourselves, for example, or how we decorate our homes and work environments, can be a playful and colorful example of our fashion and theatrical sense, especially for celebratory or ceremonial occasions. When given the opportunity, people in most cultures, after satisfying their basic needs, embellish their clothing and their buildings in playful and meaningful ways. As designers, we foster a culture of play for our guests by creating a special world for them, a theater, with forms enhanced by color. (Hench & Van Pelt, 2003, p. 123)

In addition to fostering this culture of play through the use of color, Disneyland’s cinematic nature enables us to enter into a world of play. Next, we will look at another “C” —Disneyland’s cinematic and narrative nature, seeing the importance of Disney’s animation career and how it influenced Disneyland.

Cinematic Nature

Disneyland is an essentially theatrical experience, but we are no longer watching from the audience, we are in the experience. Like a movie lot, Disneyland uses facades, but unlike a movie lot, where nothing is behind the façade, at Disneyland, there are rides, restaurants, and stores behind the facades.

We have already seen that Disneyland is like being inside a three-dimensional story, indeed being at Disneyland is like being inside an animated film; Disneyland is in essence three-dimensional animation. Disneyland was built by Disney imagineers and not architects. Disney began with architects, but was frustrated by their inability to understand his vision. Architect Welton Becket, designer of the Capitol Records Building in Hollywood, was a friend of Disney’s and told Walt that he would need to use his own people to create Disneyland. This was the best advice Becket could have given, because only the artists of Disney, using the magic of Hollywood, and animation in particular, could have created Disneyland. Let us see why.

Imagineers

Disneyland’s designers were known as imagineers. They were designers and movie studio art directors as well as animators rather that strictly architects, although some did have architectural backgrounds. They were all skilled at creating sets and backgrounds to tell a story and that is what they did at Disneyland. Imagineers created original concept drawings for the rides and lands and drew storyboards for the rides, just as they had for the animated movies. Finch (1983) tells us that Disney’s animators and art directors were used to making things visually pleasing and they were also used to satisfying the sometimes wildly impractical whims of Hollywood producers and directors. They knew how to use perspective and color to enhance the scenes, and understood from their animation work how people responded to visual sensations. The imagineers made use of this knowledge in three dimensions for Disneyland, and they were able to add other senses as well. With nearly thirty years of creating happy film environments, Disney artists and designers had their craft down to a science and the engineers knew how to make these environments work.

Illustrated Images-- Storyboards at Work

Disneyland was created through the use of storyboards to establish the structure and sequence of the rides, just as storyboards had been in Disney’s films to visually establish the sequence of the story. Walt Disney pioneered the concept of storyboards, and now they are routinely used throughout Hollywood. Originally, story boards, as the name suggests, were visual illustrations of different important scenes of the story. The animators would know the layout of the story by referring to these highlighted pieces and know where they were, and what they needed to accomplish.

Two key ideas are present here. The first one is the importance of the image, which Jung and Hillman would certainly echo, and the second one is the idea of story. First, let us look briefly at image. Disney was very adamant about this. For him, image was utmost, as Ward Kimball explains:

Walt invented the storyboard. He invented cartoon continuity at the source. Every sketch was pinned to the storyboard so he could tell just by looking at it where we were and where we were going. This is the technique that everybody uses now. It was invented because Walt wanted to see the whole plot on a couple of boards. He wanted to see it visually. Reading meant nothing to him, words meant nothing to him. Pictures were his whole bag. (K. M. Jackson, 1983, p. 146)

Marling (1997), in describing how the Imagineers designed Disneyland, notes “form doesn’t follow function, or even common sense, the pictures are what matters” (p. 54). And what matters about the pictures is that they convey a clear, unambiguous message:

Disneyland operates through controlled imaging aimed at controlling controlled imaginations. Its images, however complex the network of representation and illusion involved, are clear cut and self explanatory living up to Disney’s own continuing advice: “Make it read!” meaning making the action distinct and recognizable. No contradictions, no ambiguities. (Hunt & Frankenburg, 1990, p. 110)

At Disneyland, storyboarding was used in designing the whole park, from the rides, to the different lands, to individual stores. All of the elements of the park were players, and played a part in the overall concept of Disneyland, and also in their own mini-stories—architecture, landscaping, costumes, everything you see, hear, or feel adds to the overall story.

All of these items were storyboarded, so that they would be coordinated, and at Disneyland, all of the senses are seen as important. Tactile opportunities abound, because Disneyland is also a very hands on place. For example a store or attraction might have its own story or theme and everything within it would be in service to conveying that story or theme. The colors, fixtures, textures, and costumes are all designed according to these themes. Let us take a brief tangent to see this at play in two different attractions: Space Mountain and Big Thunder Railroad. Keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times and fasten your seatbelts as we embark on our coaster-to-coaster sojourn.

A Tale of Two Coasters

To get a feel for how the themes of different lands are supported and complemented by the attractions, we will look at two different rollercoasters, "Space Mountain" in Tomorrowland and "Big Thunder Railroad" in Frontierland, and see how the vehicles, the music, landscaping, architecture, and costumes—all contribute to and complement the atmosphere of the attraction and how the attractions fit into their surroundings. "Space Mountain" is two years older than "Big Thunder;" they made their Disneyland debuts in 1977 and 1979 respectively. Interestingly, "Big Thunder" cost $17 million when it was built, which is the entire amount that Disneyland cost to build in 1955.

"Space Mountain" is about the future, and is thus fittingly located in Tomorrowland. The attraction's surfaces are plastic and metal, with sleek clean surfaces. The atmosphere coming into the attraction sets the stage for the experience within. To get to "Space Mountain," guests ascend an escalator which takes them effortlessly upwards, perhaps reflecting the possibility of leaving terra firma in the future, and there is a vague feeling of uncertainty. The attraction is indoors, with a controlled and sterile feeling environment. "Space Mountain" is very clean and sanitary, but not as inviting as some of the other attractions. Guests are not sure what to expect. "Space Mountain" is not only cool because of air conditioning, but the colors and feel of the place is cool, as well, implying distance. While riding this indoor rollercoaster in the dark, guests catch glimpses of stars, galaxies, and planets as they hurtle through space. The curves seem very smooth, yet vertiginous, simulating “G” forces. "Space Mountain" does not feel as jarring to me as some of the other rides, but it may be that the sleekness of the surroundings unconsciously transfer, making the ride feel smoother. The sounds in the background, aside from the wooshing of the space vehicles and screaming—which have an echoing effect, are technological— synthesized, metalicized, plasticy, like the disembodied voices of an airport PA system. The hosts and hostesses are dressed in sleek, futuristic, androgynous outfits. The handrails are metal and sleek, and the cars that transport guests look like rockets. "Space Mountain" and the future which it represents are all about technology and speed.

"Big Thunder Railroad," with its rustic feeling, located in Frontierland, is much different. You initially approach the attraction by going down a ramp and under a wooden bridge. Metaphorically, this approach might represent going down into the past. "Big Thunder" is outdoors, and the cars you ride in are attached to a steam engine. "Big Thunder" sounds very rickety and feels more jarring than "Space Mountain." The hosts and hostesses wear jeans, vests, and kerchiefs; "Big Thunder" has a kind of folksy howdy-do feeling, unlike the sterile feeling of "Space Mountain." Texture abounds and the texture is rough, mirroring the rough and ready feeling of the frontier. The handrails are wooden, and there are artifacts everywhere. The atmosphere suggests a clean, well-kept ghost town, because no people are present. "Big Thunder" has a rough, dusty, deserty milieu. The surrounding landscape contains lots of rocks, and there is water as well as plantlife and animatronic fauna, which are absent at "Space Mountain." "Big Thunder Railroad" takes us careening past a mining town, through a mine shaft (where we are threatened by falling rocks and boulders) and through the skeleton of some fossilized behemoth.

Both Space Mountain and Big Thunder Railroad are rollercoasters that support the lands where they are located. They play their parts particularly well and convey us, while conveying to us very different experiences.

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