Imagineering Theory: The Sightlines of Fantasyland

This is an elaboration of this Micechat forum post.

In a previous post, I lamented the thematic mess that is present-day Tomorrowland (there's an ironic turn of phrase). Whatever your opinion of the individual attractions therein, there's no denying that it's a complete hodgepodge of concepts and design elements.

But the funny thing is, it's not the only area at Disneyland that has this issue. Take a look:

It's Fantasyland! What a charming little fairy tale village! But then...

Okay, getting weirder...

Wait, what?

How can all these vastly different design motifs be part of the same land? Were the planners drunk or what?

And how come we never notice how badly things clash when we're actually there?

To answer these questions: 1. Because that's how it worked out, 2. Probably not, 3. I'm getting to that.

Fantasyland works despite its stylistic wonkiness because of its layout. The spots depicted in the above three photos look bizarre next to each other, but in the actual park they're not next to each other; they're separated by distance and especially by orientation—that is, you have to turn corners to get to them. This brings into play the magic of sightlines.

Let's go on an imaginary trip through Fantasyland, starting at the most common point of entry: Sleeping Beauty Castle. (For the purposes of this exercise, we'll ignore Fantasy Faire and Pixie Hollow.) No real castle ever looked like this, all pink and sparkly with pastel blue turrets. It's a scrumptious confection right out of a storybook...and sure enough, once we pass under the archway, we find ourselves in a storybook village. The wings of the castle continue on our left and right and merge with/nestle up against more quaint, Old World-type structures. The ground is lined with cobblestones. Straight ahead of us is an ornate carousel straight from a Victorian fairground—of more recent vintage than a typical fairy tale, to be sure, but trimmed with gilded Renaissance-style clown faces and sheltered under a canopy reminiscent of a medieval tournament tent, knightly shields and all. This is the Fantasyland courtyard, a masterpiece of themed environment design. It's not totally consistent, but the influences that went into the various attractions exist on a continuum that helps them blend together into a unified whole.

As we move past Pinocchio's Daring Journey, we see the storybook theming wrap around the corner of the show building, ending with the Village Haus restaurant. Across the walkway from the restaurant is the now-defunct Skyway station, making for a nice little Alpine sub-theme in this corner of Fantasyland. Remember that, because we'll be coming back to it later.

More immediately, as we come around the King Arthur Carrousel, we are suddenly confronted with the two Dumbo attractions. These are no part of the fairy tale environment we have just left, but in conjunction with the Carrousel, they make up a fairly cohesive circus/carnival theme. The Carrousel successfully belongs to both and serves as a pivot point between them, and its bulk prevents each set of attractions from being easily seen from the vicinity of the other.

Continuing eastward, we encounter the gape-mouthed Monstro that serves as the entrance to Storybook Land. This could be construed as an extension of the carnival theme—a boat ride into a monster's mouth has a lot to do with the old “Tunnel of Love” rides that used cheap scares to send startled couples into each other's arms. But that might be stretching things. Of more interest is the Alice in Wonderland section across the way from Storybook Land, comprising the dark ride, Mad Tea Party (itself a very carnivalesque ride), and Mad Hatter shop. This is a great little self-contained “district” of Fantasyland—the color palettes and distinctive floral motifs (easily seen in the second photo above) have nothing to do with the rest of the area, but they are consistent throughout this “miniland.” Once you are in the Alice nook, abundant foliage helps to screen the courtyard and carnival areas from your view.

If Fantasyland stopped here, as it did back in the Fifties, we would have just one more cool bit of theme melding to explore. Let's take a look at it now anyway, as long as we're in the area. The Fantasyland walkways join up with the parade route where it passes by the Alice attractions. As we follow the parade route back toward the Hub, the Alice show building is on our right. The exterior façade of this building resembles a castle wall with a crenellated top and turrets:

It's supposed to be the Queen of Hearts's castle, but surely she would have red spires, not blue, right? Stylistically, it is almost identical to Sleeping Beauty Castle, and you could easily be forgiven for thinking it was part of the same structure. But it isn't:

That's Sleeping Beauty Castle in the lower right corner, of course. It properly stops about where that round tree is (bottom center). The Alice turrets, in the right third of the photo, are marked with pink circles. All the masonry in that area is done in the style of Sleeping Beauty Castle, and between that and the thick trees you'll never spot where the join is.

(Slight aside: Actually, you can see in that bird's-eye view that the entire eastern show building complex is adorned with crenellations. The western complex is cropped out, but it has them too. Both sides also have “dummy turrets” like the one near the center of the photo. All this contributes to the impression that the courtyard is completely enclosed within the walls of Sleeping Beauty Castle like a medieval town. Awesome!)

So let's review: Castle leads to medieval fantasy village, including a knightly carousel. The carousel crosses over with a more modern carnival, which is linked to Wonderland by way of the Tea Cups. Wonderland also includes a castle, and the circle is complete.

But don't get up just yet, because we're not finished! There's still a lot more Fantasyland to examine!

While we were heading down the parade route, you may have found it difficult to focus on the Alice show building because of the eye-popping structure opposite: the majestic Matterhorn. (It's impossible to talk about the Matterhorn in any detail without using the word “majestic.” I dare you to try it. The power of alliteration is just too strong.) The Matterhorn is definitely the odd one out of the Fantasyland attractions—a thrill ride in a land focused on children, a real-world mountain in a realm of fantasy. It's even physically separated from the rest of Fantasyland by the width of the parade route. As most fans know, when it first went up, the Matterhorn was considered part of Tomorrowland. But ultimately it was decided that a snow-capped European mountain fit the fantasy theme a little better than the future theme, and to clinch the deal, the ride was remodeled with fanciful ice caverns, glowing crystals, and animatronic Yetis.

But it still kind of sticks out, doesn't it? Literally—it's the tallest thing in Disneyland, visible from almost anywhere else in the park. It looms over the rest of Fantasyland and doesn't quite seem to belong.

Or does it? Remember several paragraphs ago, when we were admiring the little Alpine mini-environment over by Village Haus? You won't get the best view of the Matterhorn from this area due to the intervening structures and trees, but you can still glimpse it, and more importantly, there's a geographic logic to the arrangement. The Matterhorn is the easternmost portion of Fantasyland, while the Village Haus environs (especially the adjacent bathrooms) are the westernmost portion, and both are Alpine themed. Even their background music loops have a few polkas in common. In this way, the slice of Fantasyland just beyond the courtyard maintains a sense of continuity despite the mishmash of themes that fill the sandwich.

This does not seem to be an accident or coincidence. The Village Haus is a companion restaurant to Pinocchio's Daring Journey and is filled with murals and carvings of the characters from the film. On that basis you would expect a name for the restaurant derived from Italian, but instead they went with German, more characteristic of the Swiss Alps. This suggests to me that the Imagineers in charge of the 1983 renovation of Fantasyland deliberately drew lines of kinship between Village Haus and the Matterhorn, with the Skyway—which was after all very similar to the suspended trams used in the actual Alps—as the physical link.*

Still not convinced? Look at this:

This is a vintage photo (courtesy of Davelandweb) of the model of Pinocchio's village in Storybook Land, with the Matterhorn rising up behind it like the king of the range. The view isn't quite as sharp today, as those trees behind the row of little peaks have grown in a lot in the intervening decades, but it's still the case that Disneyland's most famous Alp lines up beautifully with these less prominent Alps. Even better, although we usually think of the Matterhorn as a mountain in Switzerland, it's actually located right on the Swiss-Italian border and could very well be visible from Pinocchio's hometown.

But wait! Wasn't Storybook Land, with all its intricate models, installed before the Matterhorn went up? Yes, yes it was. And wasn't the Matterhorn placed where it was because there was already a hill there made from the dirt scooped out of the castle moat? Indeed. So this view of the two attractions is actually serendipitous, not deliberate?

Yeah. So? Sometimes things work out that way. It's awesome. Not to mention, the designers of Village Haus could very well have been inspired by the above view, factoring it into their decision to redesign the western corner of Fantasyland the way they did. In any case, these instances of Alpine theming sprinkled about the land help reinforce the notion of an isolated village somewhere in Old Europe.

Whew! Moving on...

The last stop on our tour is a personal favorite of mine: “it's a small world.” Whatever else you might say about this ride, there's no denying that its exterior façade has the most outlandish design of anything in Fantasyland. In fact, there's nothing like it anywhere else in Disneyland...or much of anywhere at all, really. The work of the always weird-minded Rolly Crump, it came about in the mid-1960s, when I guess two-toned tessellations of geometric shapes were the hip thing. But there's more of the odd than the mod about Small World, especially that clock face, whose friendliness barely edges out its freakiness.

(Ooh, maybe I spoke too soon. Don't eat me, Mr. Clock Tower!)

I won't understate the case—I love this façade. I love the whole ride, but I have a special affection for its exterior design. It's quirky to the point of nigh incomprehensibility—how would you ever guess, just looking at it, that the ride was about international harmony? Maybe if you happened to notice the handful of stylized monuments along the top edge, or approached it at the right time to watch the quarter-hourly doll parade. But it's nowhere near as indicative of the ride's content as the Jungle Cruise's intricate boathouse covered in naturalists' drawings and butterfly collections, or Big Thunder Mountain's layered orange buttes and mining equipment.

And it doesn't harmonize with the overall theme of its land in the way that the façades of Pirates of the Caribbean or Star Tours do. There's a reason I put it last in the series of three photos at the top of the post—it's just weird. It doesn't match any of the other Fantasyland themes even a little bit.

The reason it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb is, again, sightlines. “it's a small world” is located at the end of a long, broad walkway called, appropriately enough, the Small World Promenade. It's so big because it's part of the parade route, but it also affords a terrific view of that façade as we approach it. What's more, the other fixtures along this stretch of walkway—snack and souvenir stands, towers for lighting equipment, even trash cans—partake of similar design elements, but perhaps less extreme. Then too, the facade itself spreads out extremely wide, and its height roughly follows a shallow bell curve, tapering off toward the ends. (It was more symmetrical before the left side had to be truncated to make room for the tunnel into Mickey's Toontown.) By the time we get close enough to look old Chester** in his staring golden eyes, we've been prepared for his appearance.

Moreover, if we then turn around and look back the way we came, we don't see much of the rest of Fantasyland. There's the Matterhorn, of course, but the promenade is off to the side of the area, and those same lighting towers that gradually introduced us to the aesthetics of “it's a small world” help screen Storybook Land and the Alice attractions from view. Not only is it a small world, apparently it's a world unto itself.

The takeaway message here should be that, for all we blather on about theme and placemaking and the important of cohesive design, it's not absolutely necessary. The most important thing is that things look right, and it doesn't really matter whether that is achieved via strict adherence to an overarching theme, or squirrelly tricks with layout and visual obstacles. Walking through Fantasyland is like proceeding through an anthology of whimsical short stories. Each time you turn the page to a new chapter, your surroundings change...but it's all right, because you can only read one story at a time, so they're not competing for your attention.

Fantasyland isn't necessarily the only part of Disneyland where this approach works, just the most dramatic case. The next time you're wandering the park—or any Disney park—take a look around and see how the magic of sightlines works to ease transitions between themes and give guests more variety for the square footage than they would otherwise experience.

* Since 1994, a missing link.

** Cast Members working the attraction inform me that this is the clock tower's name.