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architecture, but which IS also not non路archltecture. Even though journalists shouldn't be talking about It In columns devoted to Architecture with a capital ~A~, il you think 01 the Columbian E)(positiOfl of 1893, some Imponant things did develop Irom that ~ entertainment arch i teClure .~ In lact. initially I was very interested in the relationSh ip be tween these two kinds of arChitecture and II gave me some hope about what the whole place might be like. I had asked the Disney people to bnng In Rem Koolhaas, Jean Nouvel, Hans Holleln, Arata Isozaki, Peter Eisenman, Potzamparc-and some of these architects were even hired to do studies. I thought there was a growing interest In European architects, the project was in Europe, they already had all the Amencans on their list. and since the whole thing could have been an e)(penmen t of sorts, I thought they should have a variety of people. When I was asked who my choices were, I suggested tough guys, not push..over poSlmodernlsts. Then they cancelled all these people who had been hired to studies-in a single meeting Disney shdted against the tough guys. Sl: How dependent did you feel your ability 10 be a tough guy was on not having a theme. Would you have accep ted the job had it come with a theme and would you accept another Disney Job even If 1\ was un-themed! FOG: No and never, Olsney suggested I might do a huge hotel. They didn't know what the hotel's theme was yet, but it would have had a theme and I couldn't do the project, In the end, however, Ilound that I had become guilty by aSSOCiation. The entertainment center, in the conte)(t of all the other stuff, became a theme building anyway. The building became a ~Frank Gehry~ theme bUilding. Sl: Do you thmk that Frank Gehry architecture is particularly susceptible to becoming its own theme? FOG: I think it would have happened to anybody. It might even have been worse for some others. Thmk what would have happened to Rem Koolhaas. Smce he tends toward stylization-he plays around w ith the styles 01 the 1940s and 1950s and uses a kind 01 Harrison I Abramowitz language-in some ways he gets close to being themed already. SL:
What constitutes a theme?
FOG: M ichael Graves was given New York or " Metropolis " as a theme and he took theming very seriously. But il no one had said anything, I can imagine that he might have evolved Irom nowhere the idea 01 a hotel with towers and turrets representing some urban downtown . 11 you did a huge hotel in France on the banks 01 a lake, a reasonable strategy would be to make towers and turrets like those at Chambord or a million other places, That strategy could develop toward an urban idea with connotations of downtown cit ies-it could end up looking like New York but it would not be themed by Disney and would stand some chance of being honest . The architect could have evolved his own theme without realizing that he was being themed. It's the conte)(t of Mickey Mouse and Disneyland itself. where everything from Main Street to Magic Castles is already ersatz, that changes everything. Claes Oldenburg wouldn 't do anything there. He felt that no matter how tough something he did might be, in that conte)(1. it would be coopted by the real thing, which is the ersatz thing. The force--to sell \finkets, and rides and ersatz experience-is powerful enough to coopt anything. If Le Corbusier had built Romchamp at EuroDisneyland, it would have been a themed church, J don't think anyone can survive. That's the lesson of EuroDlsney-you can't w in and you can't survive. A pound 01 Mickey is WOflh a hundred pounds of everything else. What does the EuroDisneyland phenomenon have of signifiSL: cance to say to architecture? FOG: In the last analysis, I don't think EuroDisney IS abou t archltec, ture, even though I think we all believe that Michael Eisner is brilliant and that he is genuinely interested in architecture, In many regards it's thanks to Eisner that Michael Graves has dona really interesting work for Disney-with about another 10 dollars a square foot, his bUildings could have been reatly great . We believed in Eisner's struggle to prove to his partners that they could do good architecture at even the cheapest level. But the truth is that everybody understands architecture in dillerent ways, and I think that Eisner's conception is closer to Robert Stern, Michael Graves and Prince Charles's understanding than it is to my own , All during our design process there was another architect doing the same building only with a theme----he was being paid a parallel fee to do parallel work all the way through deSign development. If at any moment they had decided to dump us, they wouldn't have lost any time. I was reasonably prepared for thaI, since it' s the way Hollywood works . Several sCleen wri ters work on the same scnpt Simultaneously. From Elsner's standpoint, thiS represented a commitment to architecture. Ironically, when they finally saw the Festival hall deSigns, they were ecstatlc-our prolect IS pretty theatrical and we had tried to make a good shoppmg center. But that 's before Mickey Mouse got al it
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SL Can and should an architect make a good piece of architecture that is also a successful shopping center? Is there a difference between accommodating and facilitating shopping? FOG : In my opinion the question IS not whether we can but the fac t that we must be able to make shopping centers. I've always complained that architects like me don't do shopping centers. That's why I did Santa Monica Place . But, jusllike al EuroDisney, something got lost there too-they came In with all their stuff and it's overwhelming . I've seen Roosevelt Fields. a shopping center In New York that I.M . Pel did--it's very Mlesian and II looked like liT. Pel controlled every detail, buIll failed miserably because it was too sophisticated. It was a bad shoppmg center. So, how do you make a good shopping center? I made Disney stronger than Santa Monica place--its image was s!rongel-and the goal was not just \0 allow people to shop, but to actually encourage them to shop. The idea was that during the day the building would be fairly benign, but then, after 4:00 In the dull Paris sky, It would come to hIe and it would become irresistible. I accepted that as part of the program and I didn't feel lhat I was selling out just by accepting the program . My concern was how 10 make architecture, Instead of JUSt bUilding, that people would respond to and use and that would enflch theIr experience, Had t pusned a hltle narder and gotten more involved in the design 01 all the elements, I think it could have been different. -that was my mls-calculatlon . I thought the s!rength 01 the building 's image could hold the stuff Disney pas ted on to it, and by the lime I realized it COUldn't. it was too late. In the context of Disneyland you can't escape. But if I took this same building and put it somewhere else, including the barrage of graphiCS, it would be sustainable. One would have to be involved at an extreme level of detail. and avoiding Oisney's tendency to homogenize everything might even require collaboration . If Koolhaas, Eisenman, Venturi and Hollein had been building EuroDisney, I can imagine us ending up with 8 better thing. Not a better Disneyland. At the end 01 the day, I think maybe architecture and Disney don't mix. SL: You place a great deal of emphasis on Disney's capacity to negate truthfulness. Is the rest of the world outside Disney so much more innocent? FOG: There IS a question of cflhcal mass. Two Rodeo Drive IS Disney outside of Disneyland. But then there's Wilshire Boulevard which is Simply more honest-there IS a toughness about reality that you can'! fake . Some pieces along Wilshire BOUlevard may be contrived, but Wilshire itself was not contrived in total. The whole is bigger than any of its parts . Disney is all chocolate sundaes and the whole is simply overwhelming, Simply by bemg there you get covered In whipped cream, I believe in the difference between reality and illusion. To be overpowered by th e real is one thing, to be overpowered by the ersatz is something else. Disney needs illUSion to sell, and theirs is a seduc tion that uses nostalgia. but, in the end, they \00 are overpowered by their own images. Eisner really wants to be a patron 01 architec ture-he would like to be a Medici, but smce he eXists as part of a corporate structure, defmed by the bottom line, his engine can't really be lueled by architecture, He can't escape his own context any more than architecture can. But Elsner still represents a ray of hope-he's a major client, he's very smart and he's already taken a long shot for which he should be congra tulated, But what he could Stili do is lake a leading role in getting the movie industry involved in city building, If you think of how important something like Fritz Lang's Metlopolls has been to our understanding of Cilles, thmk what It moght be like If arChotects ware encouraged to develop a three-dimenSional Metropolis , it they were given a chance to update that Image and fmd a new model appropria te to our own time. That could be e~cltlng and Elsner could help get us th ere, As it stands now, Disney's job is to always lOOk good in contrast to society's degeneration , Given the ra te 01 our social disintegration, maybe Disney will look even better in three hundred years. Maybe In that context, Elsner WIll seem like the MediC! and Disney Will look like Florence