disney: losing magic in the middle kingdom

To maintain a cohesive look, each home was required to adhere to a 70-page pattern book dictating everything from appropriate paint trim colors (white for coastal-style homes pale blue, green, or ochre for French) to the types of vehicles residents could park in their driveways (boats and “unsightly” cars were both prohibited). In an attempt to foster a diverse community, Disney placed ads for Celebration in publications that catered to black and Latino audiences. The brochures advertising Celebration to prospective homebuyers were designed by Pentagram’s Michael Beirut, as were the street signs and manhole covers. Disney hired world-renowned architects, including Philip Johnson and Michael Graves, to design the buildings in its town center. Nothing about Celebration was left to chance. Of spaghetti dinners and school bake sales, lollipops, and fireflies in a jar.” More than a development, it would be a real community. Celebration would be “a place that takes you back to that time of innocence,” one early ad for the community promised, “a new American town of block parties and Fourth of July parades.

Entirely planned by the Walt Disney Company in the early ’90s, the Central Florida development - located less than a dozen miles from Magic Kingdom - was billed as a 1950s-style suburb for the twenty-first century.

C elebration was supposed to be the perfect town.

Disney: losing magic in the middle kingdom