Monument (to Cinema) Valley.

November 09, 2020 by Dave Gottwald

I mentioned a few posts back that I would elaborate on why Monument Valley Tribal Park is such a special place for me and why I’ve longed to visit the site since I was probably nine or ten years old.

Monument Valley, The Mittens, satellite view. Click for link. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

Yes indeed I was drawn to the valley partly because its contours are the basis for three out of four Big Thunder Mountain attractions Disney Parks around the world.

That the “Mittens” (West and East Mitten Buttes) of Monument Valley are so recognizable around the world is due to the Western genre of cinema.

The Westerns of John Ford

For most Americans, Monument Valley became cemented in the public imagination due to the films of one man, famed director John Ford (1894–1973). Stagecoach (1939), My Darling Clementine (1946), Fort Apache (1948). and most notably The Searchers (1956) all feature the vistas and Mittens of the valley as the primary canvas for their narratives. Ford shot a total of ten films here, and many other directors have followed in his stead.

Monument Valley, John Ford Point, satellite view. Click for link. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

When Ford first saw Monument Valley, he knew it was something special. And moreover, something inherently cinematic about the look of the place. Settings on film have to read for an audience immediately, communicating through visual literacy. Hyperbolic, iconic, and unmistakable.

As the story goes, John Ford’s discovery and popularization of the valley is credited to Harry Goulding, provisioner and trader to the local Navajo population. After visiting the region with a friend in 1921, two years later Golding and his wife claimed 640 acres and began raising sheep and trading with nearby Native Americans. Towards the end of the 1920s they established their Monument Valley Trading Post which later evolved into a lodge. “Goulding’s Monument Valley” still does business today.

According to the Goulding’s organization, it was the Great Depression which brought Harry and John together:

So Harry and Mike set out on a journey to Hollywood, California with their last $60. By luck and perseverance, Harry met the famous director John Ford. When Ford saw Harry’s photos of Monument Valley, he knew it was the perfect location for his next movie. The Gouldings received an advanced payment, and in a few days, John Ford and his crew began filming Stagecoach starring John Wayne.

The valley’s Hollywood fame goes well beyond Ford however. There’s an entire wikipedia page devoted to films shot on location here.

However, most of them are not the reason I’m so personally attached to Monument Valley…

Airwolf, 1984–1986 series. All screen caps are from my Blu Ray collection. — *Airwolf*, 1984–1986 series. All screen caps are from my Blu Ray collection.

Airwolf and the Lady’s Lair

That honor goes to Airwolf, an action-adventure series which ran from January 1984 (the two-hour pilot movie debuted directly following the Super Bowl that year) to the spring of 1986 on CBS. A syndicated fourth season, shot in Canada, ran on the USA Network basic cable channel with a completely different cast (but the same aerial stock footage) until August 1987, but let’s try and forget that completely.

Airwolf starred Jan-Michael Vincent as Stringfellow Hawke, a loner Vietnam veteran and test pilot who steals a top secret, supersonic stealth helicopter “Airwolf” back from Gaddafi (Libya being one of the more popular bad guys of the Reagan era). Helping him is sidekick Dominic Santini (Ernest Borgnine). Hawke brokers with his intelligence community contact Archangel (Alex Cord) that he won’t return Airwolf unless the government can find his brother who is MIA in Southeast Asia. Thus the premise is typical of other such competing shows like Knight Rider and The A-Team; Hawke and Santini use the helicopter to go on missions which defy traditional intervention as “outsiders.”

As I loved the show so dearly as a child—watching it after it was canceled, for years, first on the USA Network and then KTLA 5—I could on and on, but I’ll spare you and just provide a link to the wiki.

Typical of other “hardware” series of the 1980s, the star of the show was really the helicopter itself, which they affectionately call “The Lady.” Hawke refuses to return Airwolf to the government agency which developed it, so he needs to hide it somewhere. This became a running trope during the first season of the show, that certain government operatives are always on Hawke’s heels but can’t find the chopper.

Airwolf shooting locations in Monument Valley. Underlay map data: Ⓒ Google. — *Airwolf* shooting locations in Monument Valley. Underlay map data: Ⓒ Google.

By the magic of location shooting, where he secreted away The Lady was Monument Valley. In the show this hiding place, a sort of cave with a hole in the top for the helicopter to enter and exit, was known as “The Lair.” As you can see in the map above, a composite of two different mesas were filmed for the “fly-in” and “walk-in” views for this location.

Because it was obviously quite expensive to fly the star helicopter (a modified Bell 222) and a whole second unit crew out on location, they only went twice: early December 1983 and then again in July 1984.

In the pilot episode “Shadow of the Hawke,” Dominic flies Stringfellow out to what he thinks will be a good hiding place. “This is it. Valley of the Gods. Even the Indians don’t come up here,” Ernest Borgnine says, establishing its remoteness. The name he gives is confusing, though, because there is a real Valley of the Gods with similar scenery just across the border in Utah.

The script had to explain the unexpected storm which befell the second unit photography. Thus Dominic notes that “there’s always a little snow up here, even in the summer” allowing for the use of the footage year-round. They then approach Thunderbird Mesa and attempt to fly into “The Lair.”

When Airwolf was depicted as leaving “The Lair” it was shown from this angle. In reality there is no cave at the bottom which a helicopter (or today, I suppose, a drone) could hover into and land.

Watching this stock footage over and over on series was fascinating to me as a child, because a.) snow on Southwestern-type rock formations looks very cool and b.) I was young enough to think that it might be movie magic that it was even snowing in the desert.

Southwestern snow, everywhere. It all looked so strange, particularly when I watch reruns of Airwolf it was invariably during the summer months. Where was this magical place? I didn’t know what Monument Valley was at that age. It seemed sort of unreal. It looked kind of like the Grand Canyon, and I had seen pictures of that. Maybe it was nearby?

Comically, this wintertime footage of the valley was also used whenever Airwolf went flying off to a cold locale—repeatedly violating the borders of the U.S.S.R.—and as it was a hastily edited show which was heavily reliant on stock footage, we got things like what you see above from that initial second unit shoot, which could be tundra anywhere I suppose.

But while flying through “Russia” or “Alaska” you’d suddenly get a shot like this. Of course I didn’t realize how cheesy this is until a got a little older.

In July 1984 the show’s second unit returned to shoot more footage of the Airwolf Bell 222 before the start of the 84-85 season. This time the valley appropriately scanned as “desert.” The motion blur as seen above is because Airwolf is supposed to be supersonic, even though it’s impossible for helicopters to fly faster than sound (due to something in physics called “flow separation”). So they sped up the footage instead.

In the show’s second and third seasons, this “natural” and “expected” summertime footage was used exclusively, and the snowy Monument Valley featured in that first short episode run (Airwolf had been a midseason replacement) was never seen again.

So much for there always being a little snow “even in the summer.”

The other thing about Airwolf’s hiding spot is that Hawke and company are always a short flight or drive away, despite being headquartered in Southern California. Often they appear to retrieve the helicopter within minutes of needing it. In one first season episode, the “Valley of the Gods” was shown to be found on a “Las Vegas sectional map” but still, in Dom’s Bell JetRanger, that’s quite a jaunt.

The entire three or four hours I spent at Monument Valley, there was only one album in the CD player of my truck: the wonderful Airwolf Extended Themes soundtrack (2014) produced by Mark J. Cairns. This allowed me to live out my childhood memories of lying on the floor of the family den, transfixed by this supersonic stealth helicopter and its secret hiding place, “The Lair” in the “Valley of the Gods.”

Back to the Future III, 1990 film. All screen caps are from my DVD. — *Back to the Future III,* 1990 film. All screen caps are from my DVD.

Where You’re Going There Are No Roads

Yet there’s still one more reason I was delighted to finally make it to Monument Valley after all this time.

The year after Airwolf debuted, Back to the Future (1985) appeared in theaters, and my childhood brain was forever changed. The eventual trilogy would become one of my very favorites. While my schoolmates were playing Star Wars and Han Solo during recess, I was dreaming of my own Delorean time machine and imagining travelling back in time at 88 miles per hour.

Back to the Future III (1990) is the final installment. I won’t get into to all the details, but suffice it to say, present-day (1985) Doc Brown is trapped one hundred years ago in the Old West. 1955 Doc has to help 1985 Marty McFly go back to rescue his future self and prevent him from being murdered.

What’s so appropriate—and for my purposes, revelatory—is the set piece director Robert Zemeckis and crew came up with for the time travel sequence back to 1885. Zemeckis not only sought Monument Valley for the location shoot (which is somehow only a short drive for Doc from Hill Valley, California; then again on Airwolf they made it out from Van Nuys on a weekly basis) but decided that Marty depart from a midcentury drive-in movie theater.

Note the painted mural of charging Indians below the screen. Marty says to Doc that if he drives towards the screen he’s “going to crash into those Indians.” Doc reminds him that he’s “not thinking fourth dimensionally” and that once he travels back in time “those Indians won’t even be there.”

The joke is that as Marty reaches the drive-in screen, accelerating to 88 mph, he’s instantly transported back to 1885 and what was a painting becomes real. The Indians, being chased by a brigade of the U.S. Calvary, are charging straight towards him in the Delorean.

Above is the whole clip so you can see how clever the shot is.

There are a couple of things going on here. First, in a very real sense, the movie screen is a kind of time machine, transporting us to whatever setting the film requires. The audience enters the image to experience a movie, just as Marty penetrates the drive-in screen and “smashes” into the past.

Second, Monument Valley represents “The Western” as a film genre. Marty isn’t actually travelling to the real past, rather, he’s travelling to the Old West as it is represented in the movies. I’m pretty sure Zemeckis only intended the location to be a loving tribute to all the John Ford Westerns shot here which he probably watched as a kid. But taken critically, it’s actually a profound statement. Monument Valley = the Western genre, and Marty driving through the movie screen = literally entering that genre.

Later in the film, Doc and Marty attempt to get the Delorean up to 88 mph using six horses to pull it. Again, this is a clever tribute to the first feature Ford shot here (at Goulding’s suggestion), the John Wayne classic, Stagecoach.

So why all this about Airwolf and Back to the Future III…what does this have to do with theming? Well, my emotional connection to this landscape only exists cinematically. Monument Valley is a visual feast in its own right, as magnificent as the Grand Canyon or any number of other National Parks in the region. But if not for film and television, it wouldn’t hold such powerful, potent nostalgia for me.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I wanted to drive through the valley like Marty McFly did before me. I wanted to imagine flying through the landscape in Airwolf (and listening to the show’s soundtrack allowed me to do just that). And why should I be? This is very common phenomenon. There are entire tourism sectors based solely in televisuals, from visiting “James Bond Island” in Thailand to staying the night in a “Hobbit Hole” in New Zealand.

As my colleague Gregory Turner-Rahman and I argue in our award-winning article, “The End of Architecture: Theme Parks, Video Games, and the Built Environment in Cinematic Mode,” the movies colonize our experiences of the physical and virtual world, and alter our perceptions and expectations of spaces. My satisfying response to Monument Valley is just one more example.

Welcome to Westworld(s).

September 13, 2020 by Dave Gottwald

As I mentioned in my last post, I have personal reasons for both Bryce Canyon National Park and Monument Valley Tribal Park being on my bucket list since childhood. And actually this is true for Arches as well. The common thread? Theme parks, television, and the movies.

The Hoodoos That You Do So Well

Bryce Canyon is most famous for what are called its “hoodoos.” These rock formations are distinct from what are called pinnacles or spires in that they do not uniformly taper upward to a point. Rather, hoodoos are a product of erosion which vary in thickness and somewhat resemble totem poles. They are also found in the east side of Zion National Park to the south.

Bryce Canyon, satellite view. Click for link. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

From the rim looking down Bryce seems deceptively contained. Yet from a bird’s eye view you can see how extensive the canyons of the park are.

I was curious where the name “hoodoo” comes from, and thought it might be an Anglicization of a Native American word (I’d seen it rendered mistakenly as “hudu” before). Turns out, it actually comes from West Africa. “Hoodoo” in the Hausa language means roughly the “practice of retribution.” Hoodoo, like voodoo, is a spiritual system created by African slaves in the New World. The rock formations resemble the candles used in Hoodoo ceremonies.

The hoodoos of Bryce vary tremendously in size, shape, and coloration. Many of them looked like undersea coral to me. I also was under the mistaken impression that they stood fully formed from the canyon floor like piles of candle wax. In fact, they tend to appear in croppings not unlike fences high above the hiking trails, emerging from hills of loose soil.

In other places around Bryce they look less like individual totems and stand like walls.

And from a far distance, they lose all definition and blend together completely.

Big Thunder Mountain at Disneyland, 2007. — **Big Thunder Mountain** at Disneyland, 2007.

“Something Like Walt Disney”

This is more of what I expected to see at Bryce Canyon. I assumed that all hoodoos were freestanding towers resembling candle wax drippings. My preconceptions come from the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad attraction at Disneyland, designed by Tony Baxter. The attraction has since been adapted for other Disney Parks around the world.

Big Thunder Mountain at Disneyland, satellite view. Map data: Ⓒ Google. — **Big Thunder Mountain** at Disneyland, satellite view. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

Baxter initially conceived of the attraction in the mid-1970s as a themed take on Arrow’s mine train coaster (which was quite popular at more than one Six Flags park) for the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. But the company switched gears and wanted the attraction to debut first at Disneyland, replacing the aging Mine Train through Nature’s Wonderland which had opened in 1960 as an expansion of the Rainbow Caverns Mine Train (1956).

Vintage postcard, Mine Train through Nature’s Wonderland. Ⓒ Disney Enterprises, Inc. — Vintage postcard, **Mine Train through Nature’s Wonderland**. Ⓒ Disney Enterprises, Inc.

It was a natural fit. The Mine Train attraction already featured faux rockwork which could have been referencing any one of a number of National Parks throughout the Southwestern United States. And the look of the trains would be retained pretty much untouched for the new roller coaster.

As Baxter recalled in The Disney Mountains: Imagineering at Its Peak his initial design concept for the Magic Kingdom was in the words of author Jason Surrell “a majestic Southwestern landscape inspired by the craggy spires and rugged gorges of Monument Valley, Arizona.” But he did not feel the theme would be appropriate for the more intimate scale of Disneyland:

We had created a Monument Valley look for Florida, which has a very spectacular, classic grandeur and conjures up all of the different emotions that really work with the scale of Walt Disney World, which is a spectacular Park. Well, Disneyland is a charming Park, so we had to find an aesthetic that was compatible with Fantasyland, which was was to be Big Thunder’s next door neighbor.

The National Graphic issue Tony Baxter found in the Disney research library. — The *National Graphic* issue Tony Baxter found in the Disney research library.

Baxter went on to describe his research process:

I was looking through National Geographic and I found a great article on Bryce Canyon in Utah, and on the first page it said ‘It all looks like something by Walt Disney'—that it is that fantastic and fanciful—and I said, ‘I think I’ve hit pay dirt here, this is what we’re going to do.’

Surrell’s book identifies the issue (October, 1958) and so I tracked down a copy online for a couple dollars. You know what? Tony Baxter remembered the quote from the article exactly.

Spreads like this fired Baxter’s imagination.

Here is a perfect example of what my colleague Greg and I call “cinematic subsumption” and the bizarre feedback loops which it can bring about. In our award-winning 2019 article for The International Journal of the Constructed Environment, “The End of Architecture,” we describe the process of filmic grammar affecting all manner of design, and basically taking over (“subsuming”) the built environment.

In this example, a writer and his wife visit Bryce Canyon. She observes (not inaccurately) that Bryce Canyon, basically, reminds her of an attraction at Disneyland. Two decades later, a Disney designer reads the article, and now themes an attraction after that very same National Park. Accepting that the theme park model is based in filmic grammar, essentially her observation is that “this looks like a movie” and then a movie gets made based on that observation.

Big Thunder Mountain at Disneyland, 2008. — **Big Thunder Mountain** at Disneyland, 2008.

This is the feedback loop of cinematic subsumption—blurring the line between the source and the reference, the copy and the original. The kind of stuff that Jean Baudrillard was on about in his famous Simulacra and Simulation (1981).

Theme Park —> National Park —> Theme Park —> ?

The hoodoo rock formations of Big Thunder Mountain at Disneyland are a thematic interpretation of someone’s observation of a National Park looking like the thematic. Of course the landscape design for the attraction as a whole incorporates many other visual cues of “Southwestness” like the various cactus species pictured above. And there’s certainly no runaway 19th century mine train in Bryce Canyon.

See from a distance, Tony Baxter’s hoodoo spires look like something out of the Candyland board game. And the singular statement of a “mountain” now reveals itself to be thoroughly divorced from the realities of the topography of Bryce itself. Not so much the greenscape (notice how many trees, particularly evergreens, are visible in the above photographs from my visit) but in that the foliage is far denser than the rock formations themselves. The site of Big Thunder is completely surrounded, enveloped.

I also didn’t see any dinosaur bones at Bryce Canyon National Park, though there are many significant sites elsewhere throughout the state of Utah. So this is kind of regionally resonant.

Notice how Baxter uses the ribcage as a tunnel-like element for the water splashdown finale of the coaster, which is something atypical for this kind of ride. The Arrow originals didn’t have splashdown elements; this appears to be cribbed from the way the Disney designers slowed the Matterhorn Bobsleds down at the end of their speedy downhill journey.

Monumental Interpretations

The original Big Thunder Mountain at Disneyland opened in September of 1979 after roughly two years of planning and construction, including the deinstallation of the Mine Train through Nature’s Wonderland. The attraction design for the Magic Kingdom—which Tony Baxter had been toying with for years (his first sketches date to 1971–72)—debuted there at Walt Disney World in 1980. And true to his initial vision, it was still based on the famed vistas of Monument Valley which straddles the state line of Arizona and Utah.

Monument Valley, satellite view. Click for link. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

Unlike Bryce Canyon, Monument Valley has a robust cinematic reputation. The location has been widely used in American Westerns of the mid-twentieth century, most notably in the films of John Ford.

Thus being primed in the movie memories of so many Americans, the remarkable skyline is ideal fodder for theme park interpretation. Everyone from Grandparents to teenagers will likely find the setting oddly familiar. The most iconic forms of the valley are known as “the Mittens” (formally the West and East Mitten Buttes), resembling as they do, upright hands complete with thumbs.

Although the Mittens are the most iconic, Monument Valley’s contours and features are more diverse than you would guess. There are all kinds of cool buttes, mounds, and croppings. All of them very large.

And everywhere you look, the vista changes. It’s like a different park with each turn of your shoulder. I could have spent a week there (which you can actually do on private off-road tours with Tribal guides).

Big Thunder Mountain at Walt Disney World, 2007. — **Big Thunder Mountain** at Walt Disney World, 2007.

Honey I Shrunk the Valley

The last time I visited Walt Disney World thirteen years ago, their Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was closed for an extended refurbishment. So not only was I deprived of riding it, I couldn’t get many photos either. Above you can see that the geologic language of Monument Valley has been interpreted with great elasticity. At the entrance and throughout the queue are whole features of the valley, shrunk down.

No rocks like this exist at such a scale at the actual site. The buttes which have been interpreted for the attraction are all massive in real life. The smaller rocks above in the foreground are soft and broken, which much loose soil around. All similar rocks at the Magic Kingdom’s Big Thunder are sculpted, moulded, and rigid—just like the larger formations in Monument Valley.

Big Thunder Mountain at Walt Disney World, satellite view. Map data: Ⓒ Google. — **Big Thunder Mountain** at Walt Disney World, satellite view. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

When the project moved to Disneyland in the mid-1970s, Tony Baxter had to mirror his original layout and condense it somewhat to make it fit in the much smaller footprint allocated for the attraction at that park. Returning the project back to Walt Disney World allowed him to resume his design work at the intended scale and orientation. The Magic Kingdom version sits on 2.5 acres, some 25 percent larger than the Disneyland site. Also unlike at Disneyland, this Big Thunder sits directly alongside the shores of the Rivers of America, providing an even more incongruous interpretation of Monument Valley, where there are no significant bodies of water around for hundreds of miles.

Like the Disneyland original, this second attraction features a single, central mountain for which Big Thunder takes its name. At 197 feet, it’s actually the tallest “mountain” in the entire state of Florida. The interior of the structure houses the ride’s exciting finale and final drop.

What I find interesting here is that Monument Valley has no peak-type structures, so like with the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon, Baxter and his design team had to cheat a bit to provide a mountain in the vernacular of a landscape which actually doesn’t lend itself to one. A singular “peaked” hoodoo at Disneyland and a singular “peaked” mitten at the Magic Kingdom.

Big Thunder Mountain at Tokyo Disneyland, 2008. — **Big Thunder Mountain** at Tokyo Disneyland, 2008.

The West Comes East

When Tokyo Disneyland opened in 1983 as the first overseas Disney park, it did so without an iconic “wildest ride in the wilderness.” However a spot was set aside for it during master planning and it was always intended as an addition for the park’s first expansion phase. Big Thunder Mountain (no “Railroad” in the title) opened at Tokyo Disneyland on July 4, 1987. This was likely a deliberate nod to the pure “Americanness” of its Western setting.

Big Thunder Mountain at Tokyo Disneyland, satellite view. Map data: Ⓒ Google. — **Big Thunder Mountain** at Tokyo Disneyland, satellite view. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

Here in Tokyo the footprint is smaller like at Disneyland, yet along the shores of the Rivers of America like at the Magic Kingdom. The design motif is once again rooted in the majesty of Monument Valley, but Baxter and the other designers also made sure that there were many elements unique to this third iteration.

For example, the attraction queue has a series of interesting twists and turns which are only found in Tokyo. I found the rockwork here to be a more thoughtful interpretation, overall, of Monument Valley. For one thing, the scale is far less reduced.

What the Disney designers have done more successfully here than at the Magic Kingdom version of Big Thunder is to take these massive buttes and better reproduce their crags and contours at human scale. The forms work better as “human or a bit taller than human” rather than the toadstool-like, trash can-sized rocks at Walt Disney World. You shouldn’t be able to sit on a butte. But walking next to one seems to work. The macro becomes the micro.

There is also a lot more thematic prop work at the Tokyo attraction, to the point where the “valley” seems to be littered with antiques. The above scene looks like a junkyard, circa 1890. Also notice the forced “wall” of buttes in the background.

Because of the tighter attraction footprint, the wall functions like a fence blocking the buildings behind. This is clear by looking from above.

Bryce Canyon, satellite view. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

Oddly, this seems true to what I saw at Bryce Canyon, with walls of hoodoo croppings that looked like barriers. Even the satellite view looks the same. So there’s a little bit of hoodoo magic in Tokyo’s Big Thunder Mountain after all.

It was my impression, both times I’ve visited (2001 and 2008), that the interpretation of Monument Valley and overall theming at Tokyo Disneyland’s Big Thunder is more immersive than its stateside sister attractions. The propping might be a tad excessive, but the rockwork is terrific.

POV footage of Big Thunder Mountain at Tokyo Disneyland, 2008. — POV footage of **Big Thunder Mountain** at Tokyo Disneyland, 2008.

On my second visit to the park in 2008, I recorded some POV video footage with my digital camera. I didn’t have a great one at the time, so it’s pretty amateurish. But I was able to review it and note the attention to detail in crafting even more arch passages than the Magic Kingdom version has. Again, the detailing throughout vibes nicely with what I found out in Monument Valley.

Tom Sawyer Island at Tokyo Disneyland, 2008. — **Tom Sawyer Island** at Tokyo Disneyland, 2008.

And it doesn’t end there. Unique to Tokyo Disneyland is the fact that the “Monument Valley-ness” extends beyond the Big Thunder attraction itself and onto their Tom Sawyer Island. The first of these artificial islands is surrounded by the Rivers of America at Disneyland, and there is a nearly identical island at the Magic Kingdom. The Disneyland version was rethemed in 2007 as a “Pirate's Lair” referencing the popular film franchise.

The Japanese have a great love of classic American Westerns (this part of the park is even called Westernland) so extending the iconic Monument Valley rockwork and colors out into the rest of the environment makes total sense. Even if these small buttes and peaks look totally incongruous on an island facing a river surrounded by greenery.

Big Thunder Mountain at Disneyland Paris, 2008. — **Big Thunder Mountain** at Disneyland Paris, 2008.

L'Ouest Est le Meilleur (The West Is the Best)

As deep as the Tokyo version’s impression was on me, I have to say, none of the other Big Thunder Mountain attractions even compare to what Tony Baxter and his design team came up for their fourth and final version, which opened at Disneyland Paris in 1992.

Big Thunder Mountain at Disneyland Paris, satellite view. Map data: Ⓒ Google. — **Big Thunder Mountain** at Disneyland Paris, satellite view. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

There are many factors which make this version of the attraction so unique. First of all, Mark Twain and Tom Sawyer aren’t well known in France, so a Tom Sawyer Island was dropped. Second, although this area would still be called “Frontierland,” in spirit Tokyo’s “Westernland” appellation is more appropriate. Only the American West is represented; the Rivers of America here are the Rivers of the Far West. And out on its own landmass is the icon at the center of the entire story: Big Thunder Mountain.

Disneyland Paris is the only park to feature a Big Thunder attraction on opening day. And as he mentions in Surrell’s The Disney Mountains: Imagineering at Its Peak, Baxter appreciated that he was able to incorporate it into the masterplan this time, for

[this] allowed Big Thunder to take center stage, which it couldn’t do at any of the other parks because it was built after the center stage was completed, so it’s always out on the end or in the corner—peripheral. In Paris, we were able to put it right in the middle of Frontierland, knowing that hearing the screams and the bells and whistles would bring an energy level to Frontierland that we really wanted.

The mountain is not only the visual focal point of the Frontierland at Disneyland Paris, but also the narrative one. For the first time Baxter and the other designers created a master spatial narrative for the area. The Frontierland areas at prior parks had all been collaged together to represent different parts of the county’s wildness. With only the West in Paris, the land became the gold mining town of Thunder Mesa.

Guests queue up for the attraction in the mine structures in the town on the shores of the Rivers of the Far West. Then you ride the train through a tunnel under the water to emerge on the island, complete the rest of the route, and go back through another tunnel again to disembark.

Given the Channel Tunnel (“Chunnel”) which was under construction at the time and now connects England and France by rail, this was a very clever design move.

POV footage of Big Thunder Mountain at Disneyland Paris, 2008. — POV footage of **Big Thunder Mountain** at Disneyland Paris, 2008.

Again, my POV footage of the ride isn’t great. But in reviewing it I could see that the attention to detail at Tokyo was taken even further. Also, there appears to be a blend of Monument Valley “butte and mitten language” with the Bryce hoodoo vocabulary from the Disneyland original. Some of the hoodoo forms are visible above in the top right. In an interview with Tony Baxter for “The E-Ticket” Magazine published in 2009, it turns out he confirmed this:

For Big Thunder Florida we chose the grandeur and spectacle of Monument Valley as inspiration for the rockword. In Disneyland, we went with the charming and fanciful rock formations of Bryce Canyon. In Disneyland Paris, I think we were successful in blending the two.

One thing that really caught my eye going over my photos and footage from Paris is the amount of visible rock strata incorporated into the design. It’s a touch of realism that adds a bit more immersion to the landscape, also there is not much in the way of dramatic strata at either Bryce Canyon or Monument Valley. It just feels “prehistorically Southwestern.”

An element which is completely unique to the Paris attraction is that faux trees dot the mountainscape. And they’re evergreen conifers; they look like little Christmas trees! Sure, all four Big Thunder attractions feature iconic cactus varieties. The ones in California and Florida are real; the ones in Japan and France are faux saguaros. But fake trees, especially ones we associate with winter, were odd to see indeed.

What I realized is that the climate at Disneyland Paris makes things tricky. The week I visited in April of 2008, it lightly snowed twice. Even on the sunbleached day I took my POV footage on the ride, it was freezing cold. In the picture above you can see how the evergreen species planted around the edge of the Rivers of the Far West at the right visually compensate for the loss of leaves on the trees to the left.

Tony Baxter and his designers tried to convey a singular American West setting, yet nature stopped them cold. So, even faux evergreens were made part of the attraction design, to blend with the rest of the live plantings. As someone who grew up in the Western United States, it looks odd. Mountain smashed together with river and desert. But I suppose the French just go with it.

One last thing. The artificial rock designs at Disneyland Paris around their Big Thunder are more naturally ocre in color. At Disneyland, they are light tan, brightly bleached (somewhat like Bryce Canyon). At the Magic Kingdom and Tokyo Disneyland they are super red, almost comically bright orange. But the coloration felt the most natural at the Paris park. They nailed that bit, despite the fact that the rocks are scattered throughout the foreground of landscapes they would never been found in naturally. The forest above looks like Ohio. The rocks look like New Mexico.

Well that’s it for theme park connections. Up next I’ll look at the television and film ties to Utah’s national parks which made them such must-see destinations for me on this past roadtrip.

A Walk in the Park(s).

August 30, 2020 by Dave Gottwald

During my summer of 2019 travels I managed to visit six national parks in Utah and Arizona. Quite some time ago on this blog I discussed “National Parkitecture” which is a term design people throw around sometimes when looking at the themed stylings of the National Parks lodges throughout the Western United States. Parkitecture is sort of a Venn diagram overlap of branding (logos, typography, wayfinding), theming (interiors, furniture and fixtures, fabric), and the design of the structures themselves.

There wasn’t as much Parkitecture this time out, but I want to note a few things.

Bryce Canyon National Park

The first stop south from Provo for myself and fellow road tripper David Janssen, Jr. was Bryce Canyon. This magical landscape has been on my bucket list for longer than I can remember. I’d been to Utah before but was never able to make it happen. I’ll be elaborating in a future post as to what exactly the allure of Bryce is for me, but it suffices to say I was really looking forward to checking out the park’s trails.

For each of these parks I’m providing a satellite image, because often the terrain is not what it appears to be from various vantage points on the ground. Here you can see the true vastness of Bryce. We had an amazing all-day hike throughout, covering a nearly 2,000 foot change in elevation.

Before hitting the trails, however, I wanted to see if there was any Parkitecture to be found. The Lodge at Bryce Canyon is done in a style which I’ve seen before at other parks, a sort of glorified “log cabin” approach which is a branch of the National Park Service rustic style.

Here the scale is smaller and it’s far less elaborate. The lodge was designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood and constructed 1924–25. Underwood did a ton of architectural work for the National Park Service, yet of his structures at Bryce, Zion, and the Grand Canyon, this is only one which remains complete.

The roofs are known for the shingles, which Underwood designed to warble. The effect is a kind of optical illusion of motion or distortion. Even at a distance it’s noticeable.

I didn’t have much time to explore the lodge, and I guess the grounds are more interesting on the other side, opposite from the direction I approached.

There are great details however, like these wrought iron sconces. The lighting might be contemporary LED, but the effect is well-themed.

What the Bryce park grounds definitely had in abundance was the routed wood lettering that has become nearly synonymous with the National Park Service in the public’s eye.

Such signs were all over the more than 12 miles of trails which we traversed that day. Some examples were of a quite older vintage, which I appreciated.

Zion National Park

The next day we headed a bit further south to Zion, which I had visited years back. Although far from my favorite National Park, it’s a beautiful site which is perhaps too popular for its own good—something like 2.5 million visitors a year.

The grounds are essentially a long winding riverbed canyon leading up into a backcountry area which far fewer tourists take the time and energy to explore. You need a permit, and you need to make it to your campsite on foot, traversing the waters of the river more than once.

I found the graphic identity of Zion to be unexpectedly distinct. The park doesn’t appear to truck with most of the NPS standards for lettering and signage.

A new state-of-the-art visitor center complex opened in 2000. Much was made of its energy efficiency and sustainability after a decade of over-taxing the park with increasing visitorship.

I really liked the design which is an amalgam of clean mid-century modernist lines and an overall materiality and attention to detail rooted in the region’s history. I’ll call it “nearly thematic” design.

The Floor of the Valley Road (Zion Canyon Scenic Drive) runs 6.5 miles up the canyon of the North Fork of the Virgin River through Zion. Since 2000 when new visitor center and transportation complex were introduced, the road has been closed to private vehicle traffic during the peak tourist season (April–October). You instead ride on a line of shuttle buses.

I’m not quite sure what this 1980s sass is all about. It’s only on the busses. “Zion - The Daytime Soap.”

Each bus stop carries the same sort of “nearly” thematic design, well-integrated with the landscape utilizing appropriate materials. Pretty charming, actually.

Restrooms along the route and at trailheads are all rendered in a more “rustic cabin” style which eschews the modernism found on the park’s other structures.

Zion Lodge was designed by the aforementioned Gilbert Stanley Underwood and constructed in the mid-1920s during a National Parks building boom which included his work at Bryce and the Grand Canyon.

A fire ravaged the original lodge in 1966 and it was hastily rebuilt in something like one hundred days with little regard for Underwood’s original design aesthetic.

Fortunately this was rectified in the early 1990s with an extensive restoration reintroducing Underwood’s approach. Something still felt a bit off to me though, especially in the interiors. It was a bit too clean, a bit too corporate. Like an upscale restaurant chain trying to go for “Rustic Old West.”

The new structures which were added in the 1990s were designed in the same style as the original lodge, providing overall unity to the site. In this I think they did far better with the exteriors.

Grand Canyon National Park

I’d been to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon before. Still haven’t made it around to the North Rim; that will have to be another time. Before I had visited in the late springtime. It was different visiting in the summer for sure—lots more people. Tons of overseas tour groups, mostly from China.

Grand Canyon, South Rim, satellite view. Click for link. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

The South Rim area is essentially a small village of facilities which includes various lodging options and a transportation hub linking to a railroad line.

After walking the long trail that winds along the South Rim of the canyon, we came to the village. The first structure I spotted was this Native American-looking two-story pueblo kind of thing.

As I learned later, Hopi House was built in 1905 as, well, a gift shop of sorts for tourists. And it was designed by a white architect, Mary Colter. This is pre-thematic design, in that it predates cinema, but is still a hyperbolic and fanciful reinterpretation of historical forms and “otherness.” In fact, Hopi House is very much like a cultural display at the World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893.

The concessionaires occupying the building were Native American, offering Navajo (here spelled as the anglicized “Navaho”) rugs and various handmade crafts. As I explored the interior retail spaces I wondered what the Native peoples working here thought of Mary Colter’s invention. Does the lack of design authenticity matter? Perhaps it has been embraced, just like the Chinatowns of San Francisco and Los Angeles which were actually the work of white Hollywood art directors.

Just across the way from Hopi House is the historic El Tovar Hotel. This massive structure also dates to 1904-05 and was designed by Charles Frederick Whittlesey. Whittlesey began his career as a draftsman for the famed Louis Sullivan before being hired in his early thirties as Chief Architect for the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway. This position lead to a number of notable projects throughout the Southwest, the El Tovar among them.

El Tovar is an early example of the aforementioned National Park Service rustic “Parkitecture.” Like most National Park lodges, the hotel has undergone numerous additions and renovations over the years.

This entrance sign uses a typeface here resembling Rubens which was first cut in wood by John F. Cumming in Boston sometime between 1881 and 1884. However the face did not become widely available nor popular until it was rendered in phototype in the 1960s. So my guess is this sign dates to the 60s or 70s. To my eye it looks like a Southern California Mexican restaurant.

The Parkitecture here is one of the earliest iterations. There is a strange mix at work: locally sourced rockwork, which speaks to the Arizona setting, yet wedded to a kind of log cabin interpretation.

Seeing the log cabin look in the Pacific Northwest or in Western National Parks like Glacier, Yellowstone, or Yosemite makes sense to me. Overlooking the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, it’s not unattractive per say, but it stands out. I’m not sure what to make of it. It’s “rustic” but not really the right kind.

Other parts of El Tovar eschew the log cabin feel. This is the opposite façade (reverse of the entrance side) which features paneled walls and shingled roofs. There is also more natural stonework.

All of this appears to be true to the original design and is not the result of a series of renovations. El Tovar is an eclectic blend of a rustic Western-Swiss theme, the California Mission style, the American Arts and Crafts Movement, and elements of various Southwestern Native American motifs.

Adjacent to the El Tovar and just below it in a valley is a railroad station which is still serviced by a vintage line which arrives from Williams, Arizona. Like other smaller amenities structures around El Tovar, it’s done in a straight-up rustic log cabin style.

Hopi House is far from Mary Colter’s only contribution to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. In fact, she designed four buildings at this site as chief architect and decorator for the Fred Harvey Company which were, as a group, declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987.

Perhaps her most famous of these is the Desert View Watchtower (1932). Like Hopi House, Colter sought to design a structure for tourist purposes which leans into Native American history, here specifically the watchtowers of the Ancestral Puebloans. Colter’s version, however, is far larger. Again, I have to wonder what contemporary Native Americans from the region think about this appropriated pre-thematic design.

One last touch I caught as we left the park through the east entrance. Although superficially resembling the entrance signage found at many National Parks, this one is constructed of local stone. And there is a deliberate nod to Colter’s Watchtower on the right side, complete with windows. Nice.

Monument Valley Tribal Park

Like Bryce Canyon, Monument Valley has been on my bucket list for years and years. I drove past the park on a roadtrip many years back but did not have time to stop and explore. Like Bryce, my interest in visiting was personal (read: cinematic) and I’ll go into detail on that in a future post.

Monument Valley (in the Navajo language this is Tsé Biiʼ Ndzisgaii meaning “Valley of the Rocks”) straddles the Arizona–Utah state line and is completely within the territory of the Navajo Nation Reservation. As such it’s not a National Park, but rather a Native American equivalent, the Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park.

As I’ve mentioned before, I like to visit sites without much preparatory research so that my observations remain fresh. I expected at least some thematic design in the form of rustic Parkitecture, but found none here. The primary visitor center is rendered in a modernist style with materials that are appropriate to the setting. Not terribly exciting for my purposes.

The adjacent View Hotel was equally nondescript. In fact, the garish signage plastered all over it made the building rather obnoxious. It’s a shame that the Tribal Park has not chosen to capitalize on the rich design heritage of the Navajo and other Native American tribes of the region.

If they were to do so, they could eclipse the lovely, though obviously appropriated, forms of Mary Colter I saw at the Grand Canyon. By hiring Native American architects to interpret historical forms and construct them on tribal land at Monument Valley, the tribe could do something very special. Instead I found something that looks like a villain’s lair in a James Bond film. It’s a shame and such a lost opportunity. Thoughtful design doesn’t have to cost more than generic projects.

Arches National Park

Arches, once again, has been on my bucket list since childhood. Luckily I have a friend who lives in Moab, Utah so it was easy to set aside a few days and spend one in the park. My buddy is a LEGO freak who actually photographs his custom builds in and around Moab and produces a calendar every year featuring the quite charming images.

I had an incredible day exploring Arches, and again, I had personal (read: movies!) reasons for doing so which I will elaborate on later. As far as thematic design, Arches was (once again) kind of a bust.

The entrance sign was a more unique take on the NPS conventions, built of local materials.

I did find a bit of theming at the visitor center. The water service stations were fashioned to look like they were natural rock features. Kind of neat, and a small detail that—given the more modern design of the rest of the center—was completely unexpected.

Canyonlands National Park

I only had time for a brief stop at Canyonlands on my drive out of the Moab area. The park is just north of town and is insanely large. It would take weeks to explore it all (and an all-wheel drive vehicle, which I didn’t have). I had to settle for a short hike and table any more extensive adventures for another trip.

This National Park is of the rougher, backcountry variety. As such, there are no destination resorts and few facilities. Although I had a nice hike and saw some cool arch structures and lively vistas, there was no Parkitecture to be found at all.

I did appreciate the extremely simple, old school approach to the entrance signage. Routed in wood and sporting the same typography that you can find throughout the National Parks System. Course and unrefined, just like Canyonlands itself.

Well that’s it for the National Parks of the Southwest which I toured in the summer of 2019. Next up I’ll being looking at the Mythic West of Hollywood and commenting on my own interest in some of these park locales and their connection to theme parks, movies, and television.

Main Streets Real and Imagined.

July 28, 2020 by Dave Gottwald

Last October, at the kind invitation of Benjamin George, I gave a lecture for the Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning (LAEP) Speaker Series at Utah State University. In “The Disneyland Effect” I presented an overview of my thoughts on thematic design in general and the development of Disneyland Park from a landscape perspective in particular. Here is the video of my talk.

Having travelled through Utah that past summer (which I am just now getting around to chronicling on this blog), I chose some examples for my presentation in order to demonstrate that the design principles of the theme park model are not limited to Disney, Universal, or Cedar Fair. You can find them just about anywhere. In particular I wanted to show the thematic influence on Main Street revitalization efforts.

Ogden, Utah

I was sure I’d find some “Disneyfied” Main Streets while in Utah last summer, and the state did not disappoint. Save for Ogden, the first such stop, these were unplanned, unscripted explorations. Though I didn’t know it until I actually got to town, the City of Ogden has what it calls the “Historic 25th Street District.” But I wasn’t here to see this.

I was looking for cyberpunk. The entire reason I wanted to stop by Ogden was Blade Runner (1982). I had read on the ever-venerable Atlas Obscura that the “Star Noodle Dragon” sign was a masterpiece of neon worth seeking out. And there it is above, in all its glowing multicolored glory.

Still from Blade Runner. — Still from *Blade Runner*.

I had further read on Atlas Obscura that the connection between in Ogden and Blade Runner is not fan fiction. The designers working on the film who fashioned the above sign had indeed come across a picture of the Star Noodle Dragon.

In a 2007 Blade Runner featurette, the film’s production illustrator, Tom Southwell, mentions that he was struck by an image of a dragon in a book of neon art, which inspired the one in Blade Runner.

So just like my prior pilgrimages to Devils Tower and Mount Rushmore, I was again partaking in a kind of “cinematic tourism” by seeking out this sign in a small Utah town. I wanted to experience a piece of one of my favorite science fiction films, even though it’s not even an actual shooting location. The Star Noodle Dragon was just the inspiration for a design element in the movie. Still that was enough for me. And enough for plenty others, apparently, given its entry on Atlas Obscura.

What I did not expect to find in Ogden was thematic design, of the revitalization kind. As I’ve written about before with towns like Deadwood, South Dakota, and Minocqua, Wisconsin, one of the results of the design language which came out of Disneyland is that, beginning in the 1970s, towns all over the United States started taking their art direction from the park’s Main Street U.S.A.

Ogden’s Historic 25th Street, satellite view. Click for link. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

The first study to explore this phenomenon in detail is historian Richard V. Francaviglia’s excellent Main Street Revisited: Time, Space, and Image Building in Small-Town America (1996). Francaviglia is interested in notions of authenticity and collective memory, of theming and historical preservation.

One point that he makes is that some of the debate is moot, as there is no such thing as a truly authentic Main Street. "The image of Main Street that reaches the public is often a selected or edited version depicting what the street should look like," even with preserved, historic structures from the late 19th or early 20th century. In other words, this cultural curation has been going on across the country well before Disney got into the mix.

Francaviglia outlines a series of “sixteen basic axioms” for his reinterpreting of American Main Streets. These points describe the DNA of their architecture and why they look remarkably similar. Ogden had me thinking about Francaviglia’s third axiom:

Showcases architecture as an image-builder: The façade of buildings on Main Street become more important than any other elevation because they face the principal thoroughfare. Thus, Main Street puts its best face (or façade) forward.

And you can see this readily along Ogden’s 25th Street. The top of every building is decorated.

I found a bunch of cool typography in Ogden. And like Francaviglia points out with the buildings, it’s hard to tell what’s old, what’s new, and what’s restored. This Pabst beer lettering might be authentic. It might be a bit of theming which was added later to “sweeten” the historic look of the street, like Disney has done at some of their parks. Or it might have been painted and painted again; no longer real, but not fake either.

The reason for hunting down all the cool lettering is that my road trip buddy David Janssen Jr. and I were busy collecting images for a second 88MPH photobook of American vernacular typography, just like we did for the first volume back in 2017.

Here we have some wood type which, while is authentic in lettering style, is at once both too old (fashioned) and too new (looking) to be on 25th Street. This was clearly added in more recent years to “sweeten” the look of the building.

Some buildings (and their signage) are not trying to pretend they are old. The architecture and materials are “old enough” looking, but this is obviously a contemporary build. There are little flourishes straight out of the Disney playbook like the barn lighting goosenecks.

Where it gets interesting is when you see new builds directly adjacent to authentic antique buildings. They tried to match the basic architectural trappings and materials, even though there is no hiding the “newness” of the structure.

Looking closer, there appears to have been an attempt to match the hanglines of the trimmings. In this way the block "holds together” better from a distance.

This is where history, restoration, and thematic design collide. Francaviglia argues that the appeal of the Disney version of Main Street is because “so many of our perceptions of place in the twentieth century are colored by moving images…it has increased our expectations.” We want the movie we remember rather than the real thing.

I found this amusing. The typography is 18th wood style, but the application is contemporary (looks like cut vinyl). The “Est. 1878” is almost like either the occupant or owner wanted to make it really clear that “Hey, we’re really the OLD building here, unlike the one next to us.”

Provo, Utah

Further south I took some time to check out downtown Provo along West Center Street as I’d heard there was some great architecture to be seen. And it did not disappoint.

Downtown Provo, satellite view. Click for link. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

The streetscape arrangement of cities and towns in Utah is a fascinating topic all its own. It’s a Mormon thing, basically. Beginning at the center of the LDS church, streets are numbered north to south, and then named East and West relative to the church. Everything directs back to that central point.

Much like Ogden, Provo has outwardly branded its “Historic Downtown.” This is a performative gesture that, as Francaviglia points out, began in the 1970s throughout the United States, and continues to this day. Such initiatives often have the same gloss of a corporate advertising campaign, but might also leverage grants and other funds for the actual restoration and preservation of older structures.

Francaviglia notes that although Main Street façades have been heavily ornamented since the turn of the century, they are often restored today with a more garish and lively Disney color palette than would have been typical at the time.

It was hard for me to tell in Provo what lettering on these buildings was authentic and/or restored and which was augmentation. Again, Francaviglia suggests that this doesn’t really matter all that much. But as a typography nerd, it kinda bugged me.

Some of this filigree is truly lovely. Everything is cleaner, certainly, for which I’m sure historians and preservationists are grateful. But the bright, saturated paint treatments are pure Disneyland.

Sadly though, the elaborate Disneyfied paint jobs only apply to the sides of the buildings which directly face West Center Street. The sides which face alleys are left in their original, washed-out industrial states. Here the logic of film sets is evident. You only need to design for what’s on camera, in this case, the pedestrian and vehicle traffic on the main thoroughfare. The rest is “backstage” just like at a theme park.

Some of the structures in Provo really had me fooled/confused at first glance. This could just as easily be a successful renovation as it could be a “new for old” fresh build from the 1990s. Upon a close look at the trim and condition of the brickwork, I’d say this is an antique building.

From across the street it’s much tougher. But some of the architectural details make me think this is a recent development, like the mix of the turn of the century craftsman-style exposed rafters with the more 1920s and 30s brick and awning approach. This is a historical collage, a pastiche really only evident with those who have a background to spot it.

Conversely, his building would probably stand out to even the untrained eye. It features the kind of 1990s Italian rococo you see in business parks filled with law firms in Southern California which were inspired by Jon Jerde’s Bellagio in Las Vegas. This particular bit of West Center Street struck me as the most un-Provo.

Here’s a bit of authentic storefront with some light restoration to the paint and gilding.

And just like in Ogden, they’ve tried to theme the new construction to the adjoining antique structures. I don’t think they’re fooling anyone with that Central Bank. But as Francaviglia points out, it really doesn’t matter. This same kind of intermix, augmentation, and accommodation was happening in the 1990s but also back in the 1890s. It’s not a new thing. What’s new is the Disneyland Effect.

McCall, Idaho

Decades prior to the rise and dominance of the cinema, architecture would ape from other architecture. But now the sources of pastiche, more often than not, come from the movies. And what channeled that filmic grammar out into the built environment was Disneyland. Have a look at the block of storefronts above. Do they look familiar?

Downtown McCall, satellite view. Click for link. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

McCall, Idaho is a small resort on the south shore of Payette Lake. The settlement has been there for decades, but it wasn’t until the 1960s that the town started actively marketing itself as a vacation destination. The primary industry used to be logging, but the last sawmill closed in the mid-1970s. Today it’s the kind of place where big city residents would look to own a second home, or stay at a rental during the summer months.

For the few blocks of the downtown quad, you have a mix of what are likely historic structures. These look like what were once saloons and boarding houses. However, the building to the right, “STEAMERS,” has done some reduced-scale thematic staging on the second story.

When I drove through McCall, there were a couple new developments still under construction. And they all have the Disneyland touch.

The illusion of having larger structures featuring diced up façades with individual personalities is a Disney trick to make it look like there are numerous individual proprietors along Main Street U.S.A.

Even what were in all likelihood much older, individual storefronts have been “Disneyfied” with the same kinds of lighting sconces I saw in Ogden.

Holladay, Utah

All of the above places have a real history, however. Each of those Main Streets, despite being augmented with theming and numerous layers of alteration and restoration (resulting in a qualitative layer cake), have a genuine sense of place. Of what Charles Moore called “inhabitation.” What happens when you start from scratch?

Holladay, satellite view. Click for link. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

As Richard V. Francaviglia might have predicted, you start with Disneyland. Which is what I found at this curious development in Holladay, just south of Salt Lake City.

Now this is different than the piecemeal new developments I saw in Ogden and Provo which were slotted into Main Street settings alongside their much older neighbors. The kind of buildings where you do a double-take and wonder if they’re actually old. This “Holladay Village” doesn’t try to fool anyone. This downtown block says: I’m here, I’m the new Town Center, I look like a theme park, and I know that you’re comfortable with that, too.

The plan was approved in 2011 and the developer agreement on the city’s website is dated 2012 (the city also has a nice archive of preliminary renderings). Holladay Village is the work of ArcSitio Design who are based in Salt Lake. It appears to be mixed use with lots of pedestrian space, no curbs, and pleasant plantings throughout.

The state thought enough of Holladay Village to select the project for the 2017 Urban Design Utah Legacy Award. This is the highest urban design award available in Utah, according to the Utah American Society of Landscape Architects.

I thought it was a pleasant enough site, and apparently Holladay Village is far better than what it replaced. And I’m not going to complain about the design, exactly, because I like the themed approach. All the little individual proprietors—like “Amy”—in their own storefronts, which are supposed to have the appearance of having evolved over time into Moore’s “inhabitation.”

Some of the buildings are attached and a few others are free-standing. The mixture of styles suggests that there wasn’t one single designer or team of designers. But of course, there was. All designed and built in one go. Lively paint and trim. Not shy about ornamentation and vernacular forms.

Many, if not most, architects loathe this kind of “lowbrow, populist” design. But when a practitioner doubts that a Disneyland Effect exists, and that the inspiration for—yes, award-winning—public spaces is cribbed from the movies and thus from theme parks? I point to places like Holladay.

Lagoon - Part 3: Biergarten of Eden

June 29, 2020 by Dave Gottwald

As I’ve looked at, Lagoon has many of the familiar trappings of any American theme or amusement park. But it’s not all cheese and stereotypes. Just in time for the 2019 season during which I visited, Lagoon added a German Biergarten area which rivals anything you’d find at a Disney park.

There is no entrance to the area off the main Midway per say. But the boundary of the Biergarten is marked by this prominent structure selling beer and food to go.

The Lagoon Biergarten was meticulously designed and skilfully executed for the park by Salt Lake City’s Coel Studio. Although the way its footprint is situated doesn’t allow for true immersion (the Roller Coaster roars by right next door with nothing but a wood fence in between), this is a solid investment for the park and a most welcome direction for Lagoon to take.

Coel partnered with Wyoming architect Dan Stalker on the themed buildings in a Bavarian style and engaged with EPG for the landscape design. Have a look at the process work and photography at Coel Studio’s project page and their Instagram.

The masterplan is well-plotted and appropriately cinematic. The portion facing the park’s Midway is wide open and inviting.

Walking clockwise (which research suggests most guests in public spaces circulate) you come to a tall clock tower structure with a large archway entrance.

Directly ahead is the interior courtyard space.

The team at Coel working with Dan Stalker Architecture certainly did their thematic homework. This approach to a “weenie” or visual magnet is cribbed directly from the Disney playbook. Here the vantage, scale, and orientation resembles the approach down Main Street U.S.A. to Sleeping Beauty’s Castle.

To the left is additional outdoor seating, with better cover from inclement weather than what is available in the larger, more open front areas of the biergarten.

To the right is the center of the space, anchored by an ornate fountain. The overall approach to the area is large, connected interior spaces diversified and visually parsed by a conglomeration of façades. This suggests structures erected by different proprietors over time instead of designed together. Disney first used this approach with Main Street U.S.A. and then later with the original Fantasyland renovation in the early 1980s. You now find it all their parks. It’s been especially common since the 1990s for new retail and dining complexes, like I’ve found in Michigan and also Wisconsin.

I was impressed by the central water fountain with its wrought iron and gilded elements.

German heraldry is combined with more cute animal iconography. At the top is a golden lion toasting a beer stein in its paw. This is the kind of rigorous detail which is par for the course for Disney, but usually dismissed as unnecessary expense by smaller operations.

The carved blackletter typography pays tribute to Lagoon’s 1886 opening and also the 2019 debut of the biergarten. Wonderful detail, and subtle enough that I almost didn’t see it.

Epcot’s Germany pavilion, 2007. — Epcot’s *Germany* pavilion, 2007.

Of course, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the Germany pavilion or “mini-land” in World Showcase at Walt Disney World’s Epcot park. The area also has its very own biergarten restaurant, though it is strictly an indoor experience and a venue for live entertainment.

The German Biergarten model, which Disney and Lagoon are both trafficking in, is popular in many regions of the United States, particularly in the Midwest. Frankenmuth, Michigan is one such romanticized “European” town that takes authentic the German roots of the region and has transformed itself into a tourist destination through thematic design.

Moving inside, some of the signage is just terrific. I was pleased to discover that according to Coel Studio, Lagoon’s in-house staff was responsible for fabrication of these pieces. The typography is appropriate with quality wood routing and hand painting.

The interior dining space houses two of the largest kitchens in the park. There are 60 total beers on tap, 20 of which are unique. Like Disney and Universal have done in recent years, the menus are flat screen panel displays with appropriately themed graphics and typography.

The simple themed chandeliers are charming and low key, augmented by sunlight streaming down from skylights. The Coel team paid as much attention to the interior details as the outside.

The themed approach to restroom iconography likely did not originate with Disney, but they do it very well and Coel has delivered a version of that approach here at Lagoon.

The typography is consistent all over the complex, manufactured with contemporary substrates when required, but still with Old World touches like the rusted and weathered metal seen here.

There are some subtle elements throughout, like this small bit of stained glass.

One thing which is not as subtle, however, is the biergarten logomark. In fact, I think it’s employed to loudly and frequently. One can hardly blame Coel Studio, as they are a branding consultancy who have a number of brewery clients.

Looking down, it’s even on the manhole cover.

And it’s on every bench and trash can. Although a bit over-logo’d, the Lagoon Biergarten is some top notch thematic design that was meticulously planned and executed on the level that one would expect from Disney or any of the bigger players. I was pleasantly surprised to find this hidden gem at Lagoon (and its beer!) and I hope the park looks to similar design investments in the future.

Oh, and that logo ain’t so bad at all. I even bought the t-shirt.