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The Disney prOlects tell us once 3g3m and even more emphati cally what Ihe stalus of the architectural profession IS within the cultural marke t Disney's Ihemed enVIronments, from Disneyland to EuroOlsney, are among the most popular and effective deSigned enVironments In the world, and their success certainly rehes on t he combination of architectural prinCiples With other representational technologles_ The tasks given to architects, however, seem rather to mark Ihe profeSSion as the necessary other to the distinctive and complex deSigning of theme parks_ The attraction of the Imagmeered theme park proper IS heightened and articulated by Its juxtapoSition WIth the architect-designed support fac ili ties. Disney Corporation calls upon architecture precisely to IlIusllate the banality of everyday lil e. If thiS IS how Disney makes use of architecture. wha t the n does architecture see In Disney? Dlsneyland's layered complexity IS take n seriously by cr it ical profeSSionals as an Idealized environment In which the Implementation of planning and deSign IS used to form a coherent yet discontinuous whole Its utopian spa tial, social and mechanical seQuenCing IS admired for Its success at draWing mass audiences and Influencing them to participate In the orchesllatlon 01 their pleasure. Two recent essays on Disneyland. united by political ambition but separated by d iSCiplinary boundarres, POint up a d ilemma conflontlng the archlte<:turallelt A comparrson of the ways M ichael Sorkin and Tom Carson construct progreSSive readings of Disneyland complicates oor understanding 01 the profeSSion's engagement With popular culture.
DISNEY URBANISM One of the latest architectural writings to address the subject of Disney IS Michael Sorkln's essay "See You In Disneyland." from the volume Vaflallons on a Theme Park. which he also edited. ThiS colIectlon draws from the diSCiplines of architecture. urban planning. geography and political science to represent a progressive sector of urbanist analysis and criticism. As the subtnle "The New American City and the End of Public Space" suggests. the essays share a dismay and outrage at the transformations in American urban form that have Increasingly displaced the traditional forms and spaces of public life . The backcover summary prOVides a conCise formulation of the premise that unites the collection "Amellca's ci ties are being rapidly tra nsformed by a Sinister and homogeneous deSign. A new kind of urbanism-manipulative. dispersed. and hostile to traditional public space-is emerging both at the heart and the edge of town In megamalls. corporate enclaves. gentrrfied zones, and pseudo-hlstonc marke tplaces" Sorkln's own assessment sets the te rms for hiS diSCUSSion of the Disney theme park s: · The familiar spaces of traditional Cities. the streets and sQuares. courtyards and parks, are our great scenes of the CIVIC. VISible and acceSSible. our binding agents. By describing the alternative. this book pleads lor a return to a more authentiC urbanity, a City based on phySical proximity and Iree movement and a sense that the city is our best expression of a deslle for collectiVity " The theme park IS, In Sork,n's phrase. · the place that embodIes It all. " The Disney enVIronmen ts are paradigmatic for Sorkin of the SOCial and spatial dimensions of the postrndustrial global economy of movement and consumption. · Dlsneyzone ...• • he writes. "Iconvertsl the celebration of production Into the production of cel ebration. The Pivot on which th iS transformation turns IS the essential alienation of the producer-turned,consumer. hiS or her dance to the routines of someon e else's imagining." In his conclud ing paragraphs. Sorkin wflles that ·Visitors to Disneyzone are reduced to the sta tus of cartoon characters . ThiS IS a common falling In UlOplan subJectiVity. the predication on a homogenized. underdlmensioned citizenship... In the Disney utopia. we all become involuntary flaneurs and flaneuses. global ddlters. holding high our lamps as we look everywhere for an honest Image'" Sorkin's wlltlngs admirably describe the new spaces of social life HIS call for a return 10 hlstoncal urban solu tions. however. fa lls 10 acknowledge that those very solUlions have been releCted by the populace that crowds Dlsney's streets and supports the en vironments of thiS new American city. Sorkln'S model of the ways In which Disney constructions are Interpreted and consumed exposes a set 01 disturbing assumptions about the relationships between pleasure. knowledge. and participation. Sorkin's disparagement of the pleasure take n In Disney and hiS concomitant call for a "return" to the forms of the modern City are bound up In hiS enactment of an avant-gardism of enlightenment. a from-the-top-down progreSSIVism that marginalizes and contains the value of hiS perceptive analySIS The terms In which he descrrbes the audience that pancclpates In Dlsneyzone las aCQuiescent puppets and cartoon characte rs ) eVinces a disdain for the very consti tuenCies In whose name hIS progreSSIVism makes ItS CII\IQue The capacity for cll tlcal self,awareness and sublectlvl ty IS denied to Disney VISitors and reserved for the ClltlC Wilting from the hyperspace of the contemporary traveling intelligentSia; It IS Sorkin himself who POSitS a homogenized and underdlmenSloned Citizenry for the negative utopia he sees In Disney. Sork,n's stance resounds disturbingly with the resentment of an Intellectual poSition that fee ls betrayed by the classes It asplled to represent and to lead. The most Sinister aspect of this argument IS ItS reliance on a modernist dialectiC of enlightenment and false conSCiousness: Sorkin's
utopianism of the tradl\lonal modern city ultimately reflects hiS nostalgia for a working class that conformed to avant-gardist expectallons
PARK NARRATIVES Tom Carson's article. "To Disneyland" [LA Weekly. v .14. n.17. March 27,Aprrl 2. 19921 also attempts a progressive reading of the theme park. but from a different set of SOCial perspectives and literary spaces. In contrast to Sorkln's view from above and outSide the park. Carson's text creates a fict ionalized narrative from InSide the park and Inside the Disney characters' SUi tS as well as hiS own psyche. Carson states near the beginning 01 hiS plece:· ... llove Disneyland. I know we're wrong for each other-I"m not one of the people It was Intended lor· (p . 17). By contextualizlng hiS own responses. he ImpliCitly acknowledges that while Dlsneyland's spa tial experrences differ from Sorkin's urban streets and sQuares, they are not for that reason any less authenllc Carson also credits viSitors to Disneyland With an awareness of ItS SOphlsllcalion as a clever seQuence In which they allow themselves 10 palllClpate. CaIson revels In the eXlentto which VISitors to the park construct the ir own in terpretations 01 what Sorkin sees to be manipulative spallal and SOCial mechanisms inVISible to Dlsneygoers The subtlety of Calson's approach lies In the way he draws out the te nSions between hiS own Intellectual CYnicism regarding Disney's political place In Amerrca and hiS appreCia tion lor the park's manipulative Ingenuity. In order to dramati ze the interplay between Clltlcal knowledge and partiCipatory pleasure. Carson marshals different countermyths against the spell of the magic kingdom. HIS IhetoHcal method bllngs the utopIan counte rmyths of labor, compe\ltlon With in the Industry. and new SOCial movements to bear on Disneyland's own utopian narrallve . In the sec tion " Mr. Joad's Wild Ride." for example. Bugs Bunny and Pepe LePew. "the latter wearing an FFI arm band and the former a silence=death T-shllt" W .26). are insurgents in an apocalyptiC attack on the park. The failure of the overthrow attempt by radicalized Warner characters. as well as the earlier co,optation of Stelnbeck's Tom Joad. serves 10 emphaSize and confllm the greater popularrt y of Dlsneyland's version of American cultur al Identity. In hiS final section. "EXile on Main Street." Carson deSigns hiS own theme park reflecting the anXieties of the post,modern Inte lligentSia Here Carson Intellectualizes t he planning of a theme park to Include lands like "The Haunted Mind· and ·GUlltworld." where Ihe awareness 01 Amenca gone awry IS suffocallng. Caison earlier states: "I can't stand Innocence as a fetish. whe ther II'S chlldhood's or Amellca's ... as an Ideal It'S perniCIOUS" (p 17). By diSCUSSing thIS resistance. he acknowledges the distance between Disney's constructed Innocence and the taded analytical and political stance of much crrtlcal wfl\lng. The SIgnificance 01 "Fatherland,· Carson's theme park. IS to Illustrate that the progressive line of cll tlcal thought seems unable to create a Disneyland that captures the popular Imagination
PATRONIZING DISNEY The ongOing exchange between Disney and the architectural community focuses attention on Ihe dynamiCS of poSItion and partlctpa!+on that Sorkin and Carson outline and enact. The arllculatlon of a progressive response to changes In the spaces of public life mus t address these Issues If It IS to aVOid relnscllblng the frustrating dialectiCS of the avant-garde LikeWise. the assumption s encoded in the analytical cntella by which we learn to deSign and to ludge deSign work are often the mechanism by which architectural discourse and practice marginalize themse lves from the broader audiences they seek to engage. It IS In part because of Dlsney's relentless allentlon to the bUSiness of pleasure that architecture IS left \0 dream of dOing what Disney does.
Nma B. Lesser and Jonathan Massey are studenrs m the UCLA Graduate School of Archl/ecrure and Urban Plannmg .
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