Epcot

History

Walt Disney's Experimental Community of Tomorrow

The genesis of Epcot began in the early 1960s with Walt Disney himself. After having many grandchildren, Walt began to worry about the world they would grow up in. He looked around the cities of America and though he could do better. The cities were full of crime, disorganized, dirty and hectic. Disneyland was the opposite of these things and Walt decided he could take the Disneyland philosophy and apply it to the real world. Disneyland also proved that Walt and his company was very efficient in the art of building and designing buildings. With these began to study and read about how to start a city.

The idea of a utopia city got it's name in 1966. Walt Disney narrated a video in witch he described his dream city.

The city would be housed near Disney World, and would be called the Experimental Community of Tomorrow or EPCOT. Walt called EPCOT, “the most exciting, by far the most important” and the heart of what he planned to do in Disney World. The city would take its queues from the new ideas and technologies of American industry and would be a “community of tomorrow”. Walt wanted to plan and design every detail of the city, in order to meet the public's needs. Industry was also expected to partner with Disney to solve the problems of the society and make EPCOT an utopia. Walt said that EPOCT would never be finished, it would always be improving. He hoped that when it was built it would house about 20,000 people. 

EPCOT was laid out to be the perfect city. It took it's design from Disneyland, in that their would be a central hub that roads and monorails would connect to the other parts of the city. The center “hub” of EPCOT would have been a large business area. The area would have been under a dome that would control the temperature and weather. The busines area would have also included office buildings, shopping, and the “crown jewel” of EPCOT, Cosmopolitan Hotel. The hotel would be located at the center of EPCOT and would be 30 stories tall. The Hotel would also house (in the basement) the transportation lobby of EPCOT. Underground, People Movers would transport people to the various parts of EPCOT. Cars and Trucks would also have underground highways that they would be able to use. No gas vehicles would travel above land. Also in the business area of EPCOT would be a shopping center featuring items from around the world. Offices, theaters, nightlife and restaurants would all be found in the business area.

Outside of the business area would be the high density apartment housing, Citizens who lived here would have the luxury of being close to business area, but would live in apartment complexes. Outside of the apartment housing was to be the recreation area. The recreation area would have consisted of things such as pools, parks, church's and schools. Beyond the recreation area would have been the residential neighborhood. This is where a large number of families would have lived. The area would have consisted of housing and small recreation areas such as playgrounds.

The final part of EPCOT would have been the industrial center. This is where companies from around the world would work on various projects. Walt wanted guests to be able to visit these companies and hopefully take some inspiration for industry home with them. In order to get to the rest of Walt Disney World and the EPCOT industrial center, citizens of EPCOT would take a monorail. The Monorail and the People Mover were expected to be the main methods of transportation in EPCOT thus eliminating traffic.

From City to Theme Park

When Walt Disney died in 1966 the future of EPCOT was forever changed. 1967 the Reedy Creek Improvement District was signed into law giving Disney more liberties when it came to construction. Although this seemed like the first step towards the construction of EPCOT, the board of the directors decided that they did not want to build EPCOT. Although Roy O. Disney wanted the city built, when Walt Disney World opened it consisted of only The Magic Kingdom, the Contemporary, and the Fort Wilderness campgrounds.

In the late 1970's Disney CEO Card Walker revisited the EPCOT idea to the board of directors. Once again however, the idea was scrapped. The company felt that people would no want to come live in a place where they would constantly be watched and analyzed. In 1982 it was decided that EPCOT would open as a theme park, not a city. The theme park was named EPCOT Center to reflect the fact that the park would get it's inspiration from Walt's EPCOT city. The park took the idea of promoting technology and incorporated it into attractions. The Imageneers at the company were divided over what the park should look like. Some felt it should be a futuristic theme park that would help promote technology. Others felt that an international themed park, one that celebrated different cultures. After much heated debate, two Imagineers literally pushed together the two models. EPCOT now resembled a world's fair, and would later be called “a permanet world's fair.”

Construction and Layout

In 1978 Disney announced they would be constructing a new theme park, the EPCOT Center. Construction began on May 1, 1979 and was completed September 27, 1982. Epcot went under 19 different design renovations before the final World Showcase/Future World design was accepted. Originally, the east side of Future World was supposed to have shallow lagoons. This idea was eventually scrapped and East Future World became the dry side, while West Future World became the wet one. 4,000 workers worked on phase 1 of Epcot. 10,000 workers and 3,000 designers were used in total during the creation of Epcot. This included moving an astonishing

While the basic plans for Epcot had now been decided, Imagineers decided that they needed an icon, something in the skyline to draw guests into the park. The Imagineers liked the idea of the dome that Montreal had built for the 1967 World's Fair, but wanted something a little more dramatic. What they ended up building would be the world's first geometric sphere, Spaceship Earth. Science fiction writer Raymond Bradbury helped design the sphere, which was 160 feet in diameter. Disney also enlisted the help of MIT to determine what kind of pressure the sphere would create under it. Disney feared that the pressure would create a wind tunnel underneath the sphere, but this ended up being untrue. Another problem that engineers faced, was how to hold the sphere up. There had been little information available into geometric spheres so Disney had to look inward for a solution. What they decided to do was put six large legs between 120 and 160 feet into the ground for support. The legs were then reinforced at the top of the legs, before the sphere was built. Inside the sphere an elevator, track, and show scenes for Spaceship Earth were built. There is actually two spheres located within Spaceship earth and outer and an inner. The inside sphere is made of steel, pyramid shaped pipes. The outside was then covered with Alucobond pyramids, a polyester plastic, covered in two sheets of aluminum.

The two layer sphere solved two problems for Imagineers. The first, was the need to protect Spaceship Earth from fire and weather damage. The Alucobond protects the inside sphere, while also looking pleasant for guests. The other problem that Alucobond solved was the issue of run-off rainwater. Imagineers left a gap between the Alucobond pyramids which allows water to run into a gutter system in the inner sphere before eventually draining in World Showcase.