When you think about Walt Disney World, what are the first thoughts that enter your mind? Do you reminisce about walking down Main Street for the first time, seeing Cinderella Castle perfectly centered ahead of you? How about walking into Space Mountain for the first time? What about the other legendary man-made mountains at Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain? Do you remember that moment you were swept away by the majesty of Spaceship Earth at Epcot?
Yes, the scenery at Walt Disney World is an integral part of its appeal. The four parks claim a stunning number of architectural triumphs. Disney Imagineers have frequently done the ultimate; they have built something from nothing. So many of their achievements are unforgettable. They are also engineering marvels so impressive that college students research them for school papers. Have you ever wondered what was involved in getting them off the ground?
The short answer is millions of pounds of steel and other raw materials. The long answer involves a diehard bunch of specially trained engineers with a can-do spirit and the boldness to succeed in ventures others wouldn’t even have thought to try. That’s the power of Imagineering. Of course, even Disney Imagineers face unpleasant realities such as budget constraints. That was particularly true during the early days of Walt Disney World, when building one right regularly meant sacrificing another as the opportunity cost.
Countless landmarks at Walt Disney World are worthy of examination. Walt Disney’s laser-focus on architectural design was something he passed down to all his disciples, allowing his legacy to last half a century beyond his death and counting. Still, some of the achievements are greater than others. Let’s take a closer look at the construction of several of the most awe-inspiring monuments at Walt Disney World, learning about all the struggles Disney employees faced in creating something from nothing.
Cinderella Castle
No other landmark in the world is as inexorably linked to its theme park as Cinderella Castle is to Magic Kingdom. Cinderella Castle is a 189-feet tall building including its watery moat. Its size is specific. Disney gained a lot of influence with the state of Florida during the building of the park, but they couldn’t avoid FAA regulations involving structures in excess of 200 feet. Had Cinderella Castle stood that tall, government officials would have required Disney to add flashing warning lights for low-flying aircrafts. Imagineers weren’t going to do that, of course.
While Disneyland fans in Anaheim, California, maintain that Sleeping Beauty Castle is the original theme park castle and thereby the greatest, Walt Disney World park planners accounted for this thought process. During the crafting of the blueprints for Cinderella Castle, everyone involved understood the stakes. In order to branch out from Disney as a single theme park, they’d have to overcome the perception that the Florida park was derivative. The best way to achieve that goal was obvious. They’d have to make everything at Magic Kingdom bigger and better. When it came time to design the castle, they took that literally.
Don’t tell Imagineers the odds
Cinderella Castle is more than 100 feet taller than Sleeping Beauty Castle, but hanks to the magic of forced perspective, it even seems bigger than that. People walking down Main Street may not even recognize that it’s happening, but the castle will grow larger as they approach it. However, the castle will also seem thinner, since that’s how Imagineers intended the optical illusion of a regal skyscraper to work. Guests should always feel small in the presence of Cinderella Castle.
Bringing their planned landmark to fruition wasn’t easy. If we exclude the infamous land purchases that Walt Disney managed to sneak under the noses of Florida real estate magnates, the company invested $4.7 million into the construction of Cinderella Castle, not including decorating the interior. You can look at that investment expense as a lot or a little. In 2015 dollars, that’s $28.7 million. So, the castle cost less than Alex Rodriguez receives to play for the New York Yankees. The $4.7 million is also only a fraction of the overall cost to build Magic Kingdom. The total bill for the park was $400 million, which means Cinderella Castle is only one percent of the overall financial outlay. That’s not too bad for a royal dwelling.
Image: Disney
The primary concern with building Cinderella Castle was the timeframe. Once Disney execs finished the blueprints, they were only 22 months away from the debut of the park. It would have been unforgivable for the central view of Main Street to remain under construction after the park had opened. The struggle everyone faced is that they broke ground on Walt Disney World in 1967. The new landmark was way behind some of the other projects.
Construction employees worked under a tight deadline to build the landmark. To their credit, they actually finished earlier than projected. Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom opened its gates for the first time on October 1, 1971. Despite breaking ground only 18 months prior, the project came together quickly. That’s the benefit of great planning. It also helps that the backbone of Cinderella Castle is fabricated metal rather than brick, which is slower to set.
Six hundred tons of steel comprise the central spine of the castle. In order to secure it during hurricane season, there’s also a reinforced concrete buttress that surrounds all the integral parts of the structure. Due to its cleverly engineered core, Cinderella Castle can withstand 110 mile per hour winds, and architects believe it could even go quite a bit beyond that if needed.
Castle in the sky
Now that the architecture lecture is over, let’s talk about the fun stuff. Imagineers modeled Cinderella Castle after several great palaces, fictional and real. Herbert Ryman earned the right to construct the facility. He won rave reviews for his work in bringing Sleeping Beauty Castle into existence, so when Disney started to design their second theme park, he was the perfect choice.
Ryman chose some of the most beautiful buildings in the world as models. Those include Versailles and Fontainebleau in France as well as Moszna Castle in Poland. He also mimicked some of the ideas from famous chateaus such as Chambord, Chaumont, and Pierrefonds. The most lasting impression, however, came from the castle animated in Cinderella, as it should be.
In order to perfect this look, Ryman requested ornamental accoutrements such as turrets and spires to emphasize the royal nature of the castle. To create the unusual look, he planned for Cinderella Castle to feature 29 towers. Alas, two of those had to be scrapped because other plans involving the Fantasyland section of the park completely obstructed their view. For that reason, there are now 27 towers strangely numbered from 1-29. The two numbers for which there isn’t a matching tower are 13 and 17.
Three of the most memorable towers are 10, 20, and 23. 10 features the famous clock, while 20 is the tallest of the group. 23 is the unforgettable gold roof that you probably have appreciated in some of your favorite Walt Disney World pictures. Since the castle is supposed to be a place of tremendous romance, there’s also a wishing well and bushes that Disney cuts specifically to emphasize that love is always in the air at Cinderella Castle. The romance is painted on the walls, too. The five murals in the castle archway reveal the love affair between Cinderella and Prince Charming.
There is one odd tidbit about Cinderella Castle. Disney emphasized authenticity from start to finish, even employing gold paint to enhance the regal perception of the structure. There was one aspect of Sleeping Beauty Castle that they couldn’t translate to Walt Disney World, though. The drawbridge at Disneyland is functional. Disney has raised it exactly twice. The first time was for the park’s grand opening, while the most recent instance occurred in 1983 when the company rededicated Fantasyland. By 1970, Imagineers understood that there was no point in designing a functional moat after Disney had opened its predecessor exactly once in 15 years. So, the drawbridge at Cinderella Castle is only for show. When the zombie apocalypse comes, you’ve been warned not to try to use it for safety.
Despite the storied history of Cinderella Castle, Disney isn’t afraid to alter the look of its signature landmark, either. In 2015, the company updated the Central Plaza area with new gardens and pathways as well as a special viewing spot for Wishes. Since that show and Cinderella Castle are tethered together, Disney updated the castle with four new turrets that expand this grand icon’s footprint even farther into the Magic Kingdom’s central hub area.
Big Thunder Mountain and the phantom boat ride
Image: Disney
In the years following the opening of Magic Kingdom, Disney faced tremendous economic constraints. For a few years, their architectural feats stood on hold. There was a reason for this status quo. While the new park proved wildly popular from the start, they still had to contend with the aforementioned $400 million cost to build it, the equivalent of almost $2.5 billion today. To say that they were cash-strapped undersells the problem.
Despite their financial limitations, The Walt Disney Company refused to let their founder’s legacy flounder. They proceeded with several new projects over time. The catch was they faced opportunity cost decisions with each new construction. Big Thunder Mountain wound up the temporary loser in this fight.
Originally conceived in the early 1970s, Disney Imagineers intended the ride to operate as a companion to the linchpin attraction, which was already well into the planning stage. The Western River Expedition was a boating journey in Frontierland, and it would share the same general space as a train-style roller coaster. The company would craft a western-themed pavilion hosting the two new attractions. You’ve likely never heard of Western River Expedition since Disney never built it. In fact, that’s where the entire conversation jumps the shark.
Big Thunder Mountain vs. Pirates of the Caribbean
Image: Disney
Imagineers projected Western River Expedition as the Pirates of the Caribbean of Walt Disney World. They saw no need to build a mirror copy of the signature Disneyland attraction in Florida, because that state was chock full of pirate history already. It’d be like building Hall of Presidents in Washington, D.C. They’ve lived it. Why do they need to catch the highlights again during a 10-minute boat ride?
Disney’s logic was sound. Alas, their branding was stronger than their logic. From opening day forward, Walt Disney World guests questioned when Magic Kingdom would add Pirates of the Caribbean. The only problem was that Disney hadn’t planned for it. That means they also hadn’t budgeted for it. In order for the company to give the people what they wanted/demanded, Imagineers would have to make sacrifices to build a ride they hadn’t expected Floridians to anticipate.
The first cut was the deepest. Western River Expedition, the spiritual successor and Floridian response to Pirates of the Caribbean, hit the chopping block. In order to lower expenses, Disney had to drop the pricey Adventureland expansion. Imagineers still liked the idea of a train functioning as a roller coaster, but again, there was a financing issue.
The company was no longer getting two attractions from the same financial outlay, and they’d experienced a sudden expense in building Pirates. Something had to give, and that victim was Big Thunder Mountain. The decision was only supposed to be temporary, though. Imagineers such as Tony Baxter and Bill Watkins remained steadfast in their belief that this coaster would prove popular. Disney simply had to find the money to make it. In their estimation, that should have occurred as soon as Pirates of the Caribbean was ready. Except…
Big Thunder Mountain vs. Space Mountain
Image: Disney
Pirates of the Caribbean debuted to tremendous acclaim on December 15, 1973. With that attraction finished and drawing more customers into Walt Disney World, the company’s financial problems eased a bit. Disney mastered the art of using increased ticket sales from one ride to pay for the next offering. Insiders presumed that Big Thunder Mountain would become that attraction. Only, it didn’t.
Almost a decade earlier, vaunted Disney park constructor John Hench enjoyed a sudden burst of creative inspiration. He envisioned a Space Port that would become the hub of Tomorrowland. The central selling point of his new pavilion was an indoor roller coaster, the ultimate dark ride. Hench’s ideas for something he called Space Voyage largely remained intact over the years as Disney planners tinkered with the mechanics of it.
In June of 1966, they changed the name of the ride to something more familiar, Space Mountain. Disney hired one of their favorite construction partners, Arrow Development Company, and they prepared to add it at Disneyland. Remember that Walt Disney World was still more than five years away when Space Mountain received its ultimate identity.
Third time unlucky
Image: Disney
As was the case with so many attractions, Walt Disney’s death fundamentally altered the history of Space Mountain. WED Enterprises wanted to carry on the legacy of Uncle Walt, but their funds were limited. Investors were understandably skittish about the company after its founder died. It’s akin to Apple in the wake of the passing of Steve Jobs except that Disney wasn’t the force of nature on Wall Street that Apple is today.
On some level, investors had confidence that Disney trained a worthy batch of successors, yet they didn’t put their money where their mouths were when it came to loans. In the wake of his death, The Walt Disney Company found itself in a strange position. The stock increased steadily for years to the point that they become a member of the exclusive Nifty Fifty, indicating that they were one of the bluebloods in corporate America. Still, creditors worried that the debt they were accruing with their Florida purchases represented far too much unwelcome risk.
With a hard cap on their spending, Disney directed all their resources toward Walt Disney World. From their perspective, Disneyland was a dream that Uncle Walt lived to see come true. While they would always work to keep it fresh, a mission statement that still stands today, the better way to honor their leader would be to create a second theme park in Florida. They wanted to craft something just as impressive in the early 1970s as they had done in California in 1955. You see where I’m going with this.
Space Mountain, a Disneyland project, changed overnight into a Walt Disney World project. This happened in the wake of Pirates of the Caribbean, a Disneyland project, becoming a Walt Disney World attraction due to the demands of the Florida visitors. Big Thunder Mountain, a Walt Disney World project from the start, once again got pushed down further in the queue in order to make room for a California attraction nobody had originally planned to build in Florida.
Space Mountain
Image: Disney
From its original conception, Space Mountain was intended to be a modernized version of the Matterhorn Bobsleds. One of the reasons Disney hired Arrow in the first place was that they’d worked on Disneyland’s most famous roller coaster. The plans for Space Mountain were ambitious. It would contain four tracks that could depart the gate at the same time or at set intervals. Disney’s financial issues as well as the space limitations expected for Space Port at Tomorrowland eliminated the multi-track option. For this reason, the premise of Space Mountain briefly fell out of favor with park planners.
Rather than create a new ride, the company realized they could save money by duplicating Matterhorn Bobsleds at Walt Disney World. Hey, it’d worked with Pirates of the Caribbean, and thrill rides were proving especially popular with the insatiable Florida crowd. Eventually, Disney execs recognized that they were in danger of Walt Disney World becoming known as Disneyland East rather than having its own distinct identity. They returned to the original plan, which was a new and improved coaster concept rather than a throwback to one from 1955.
In order to make Space Mountain stand out as something especially unforgettable, Imagineers appreciated that they’d have to do something different. That drive to build something novel led to the man-made structure so closely associated with Space Mountain today. Disney knew that the one advantage of building it at Walt Disney World was that they’d have a great deal more space. Tomorrowland was relatively barren in its early days. The problem remained budgetary in nature. One of Disney’s top executives found a clever solution, enticing RCA to sponsor the ride in exchange for a $10 million investment. That was enough for Disney to feel comfortable greenlighting the $24 million project, out of which they would pay $14 million.
The exterior structure required a massive facility. Space Mountain would host the world’s first indoor space-themed roller coaster. To get the details right, the interior roofing would project the Earth’s place among the stars, thereby fostering the sensation of actual space travel. Gordon Cooper, one of the original seven NASA astronauts from Project Mercury worked as a special advisor to the project to lend an air of authenticity. Award-winning author Ray Bradbury also participated, since science fiction is oftentimes more stimulating than science fact.
The two men combined with Disney illustrators to build a blueprint for Space Mountain the building. They designed the amazing 183-foot structure, which fell only six feet short of matching Cinderella Castle in height. Space Mountain features a circular design that was hotly contested for a time. Some Imagineers preferred a dome shape while others favored a cone. The latter option eventually won.
To bring the blueprints to life, Disney needed 4,000 giant pieces of steel plus 12,000 feet of electrical wire. The project required less than two years to complete once Disney finally broke ground, although the opening date of January 15, 1975, was over a decade after the initial conceptualization and pitch. You can see some wonderful photographs of its construction here. After the Walt Disney World version of Space Mountain debuted, Disney immediately focused on transferring the ride back to Disneyland. On May 27, 1977, the California version opened. Between the two attractions, the company invested more than a million man-hours on design and construction. The Disneyland version cost $4 million less at $20 million.
Finally, there’s a mine ride
Image: Disney
Perhaps because they were fresh out of excuses, Disney finally moved forward on the long-gestating train roller coaster project once the Space Mountain build ended at Walt Disney World. Imagineers speculate that the delay turned out to be a net positive for the attraction. Computers evolved at an exponential rate during the 1970s. What was a nascent technology back when Tony Baxter invented the roller coaster train concept had advanced dramatically over the course of the decade.
Of course, there was still a Charlie Brown trying to kick the football element to the construction. Amusingly, Disney execs once again flipped the placement of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. After years of discussion about its inevitable location at Magic Kingdom, Disney finally broke ground…at Disneyland. You’re likely noticing a pattern here.
The company played a shell game with all of their major projects during the 1970s. They followed a strict cost projection strategy based on where new rides would cost the least while bringing in the most new business. For whatever reason, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Walt Disney World lost this game so much that they would have picked #1 overall in the Phantom Disney Attractions Draft.
Finally, the next Magic Kingdom mountain arrives
Image: Disney
In September of 1979, the great train adventure finally debuted at Disneyland. Around the same time, Disney determined that they should host the ride at both locations a la Pirates of the Caribbean and Space Mountain. So, nearly a decade after its initial proposal, the last remnant of Western River Expedition finally came to fruition at Walt Disney World.
While not the skyscraper as some of the other attractions listed here, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad still stood 104 feet tall, more than Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland. It again takes advantage of the ample Disney property in Florida, running over two-and-a-half acres of track, 25 percent more than its California counterpart. It includes a heavily sloped hillside that allows the coaster to turn at steep 270-degree angles while still delivering the experience of a runaway train during inclement weather. If you hadn’t realized this about the ride, you can read some odd trivia about its backstory here.
With regards to the details of that story, Big Thunder Mountain’s construction highlighted the conceit that this mid-19th century town had to be abandoned quickly. The end result left the mine trains somehow operating on their own. To reinforce the theme, Imagineers painted the mountain a reddish tinge to remind observers of the red rocks prevalent in the American southwest, one of the primary locations of gold rush settlers.
The next time you look at the mountain range, pay particular attention to the craftsmanship and attention to detail Disney demonstrated in crafting an artificial mountain so lifelike and vivid. Even as it stands next to another manmade façade, Splash Mountain, it still towers above the 87-foot tall structure close by. The twin towers have stood side by side since 1992, and it’s difficult to separate the two when thinking of Frontierland. Had fate not been so capricious with Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, however, it could have been connected to a much different boat ride instead. All in all, I think we’d all agree that the situation worked out for the best.
Spaceship Earth
Image: Disney
In the early 1980s, giant steel balls were all the rage in society. Okay, there were at least two under construction. One was in Knoxville, Tennessee, where engineers readied an absurd looking hexagonal steel ball for the 1982 World’s Fair. It was called the Sunsphere, and it’s a punchline inasmuch as a lasting legacy to architecture. People quickly realized that using gold dust to layer glass panes would cause intense heating issues inside the building. That structure debuted in May of 1982 and was already a laughing stock by the end of the year.
A few months later on October 1, 1982, EPCOT Center (as it was originally known) opened to the public. The jaw-dropping piece of architecture called Spaceship Earth stood mightily near the front gates, drawing attraction from all the people ready to storm the entrance to enjoy all the futuristic sciences and technologies that Disney promised of EPCOT Center. Suffice to say that this giant ball has stood the test of time a bit more easily than the earlier arriving Sunsphere despite that the themes are similar. In other words, placing some of the finest engineering minds in the world against Disney’s Imagineers proved to be a blowout.
The key, as always, is that Disney employees anticipated concerns that people without experience in novelty engineering couldn’t have expected. They debated many structural builds, each of which was capable of dazzling onlookers, before settling on one that wasn’t just breathtaking to view. It was also feasible to construct and easy to utilize as a ride attraction. It’s that kind of forward-thinking that explains why Spaceship Earth is as remarkable today as it was almost 35 years ago when construction began.
Pentakis dodecahedron? Seriously?
Image: Disney
While you’d need the world’s largest driver to strike this particular golf ball, and only Godzilla would be large enough to swing it, there’s no disputing the look of Spaceship Earth. It looks like a giant golf ball complete with dimples. Like so many triumphs of aesthetics, it looks completely different up close than it does from afar. That’s because of the unique infrastructure.
Warning: there are many strange words ahead.
The giant ball you know as Spaceship Earth has a geometric basis for its design, and one that sounds like a James Bond villain at that. It’s called a pentakis dodecahedron, which means that it’s got a series of 12-faced regions. A set of five triangular faces, each of them in a pyramid design, pairs with each dodecahedron.
Disney Imagineers modified the concept slightly to create the novel look you know today. Their giant ball includes 60 isosceles triangle faces that are then split into 16 even smaller triangles. Due to all the splits and cuts, we wind up with just under 1,000 flat panels (960 to be precise) totaling 11,520 triangles. All of them meet at 3,840 points. You can’t see some of them due to side concerns for the building such as entry points. Then again, it’s not like you were going to count all the way up to 11,000 anyway.
Don’t worry. You’re not going to be tested on any of this. It simply underscores how complex the underlying design of Spaceship Earth is. Think of the entire structure as one giant SAT exam with a focus on your least favorite subject, geometry. If you find Hidden Mickeys searches obsessive, discovering all the triangles in the Spaceship Earth façade might drive you insane.
Less math, more facts
Now that you feel like a teacher’s pet for knowing all the math of Spaceship Earth, let’s focus on the construction. For all its complicated calculus, the actual building of the facility didn’t take a lot of time. Disney completed the entire process in just over two years. The 26-month endeavor is a remarkable turnaround time for something that stands 182 feet tall and 165 feet wide. Note that Disney didn’t feel the need to best its own records. They intentionally left Spaceship Earth seven feet shorter than Cinderella Castle, leaving it as the tallest park landmark for a long time.
What did Disney need in terms of raw materials to bring Spaceship Earth into reality? Well, it’s more than you’ll find at your local Home Depot. The theme of Epcot during its early days was “bringing the world together through technology,” but raw materials must have been implied. Massive volumes of aluminum, plastic, and steel comprise the core. The design of the building is so strange that Disney had to build it in three parts.
The three sections were the sphere portion, the utility portion, and the ride itself. Obviously, the ride and show portion had to fit inside the sphere part, which added a level of complexity to an otherwise seamless process. For the ride, Disney built a floor unit with concrete slabs supported by metal decking. The utility portion does most of the heavy lifting in a literal sense. It handles the load transfers for both the sphere and the ride, thus the name utility.
Trying to reason with hurricane season
Due to the novel design of a geodesic sphere, Disney had to perform several research studies on feasibility. They were especially worried about the weather conditions in Orlando, Florida. Disney asked MIT to perform wind test studies on a smaller scale version of Spaceship Earth specifically built for testing purposes. Disney employees needed to make sure that guests walking around the base of the structure wouldn’t have anything ridiculous happen. There were early concerns that wind might knock guests off their feet. Thankfully, those worries proved unfounded.
Disney still wasn’t done worrying about the weather, though. Imagineers calculated the potential flooding issues, particularly during hurricane season. It’s true that if you stand directly under Spaceship Earth, you won’t get wet. This is a feature, not a bug. One of the hidden purposes of the many, many triangles is that they drain water in a way that shields guests from moisture. Spaceship Earth is more than an architectural triumph. It’s also a giant umbrella.
Finally, in order to create the floating effect of the ball, Disney put it on stilts. Yes, I’m serious. The actual structure stands 18 feet above the ground. That’s because a series of six steel legs provide its balance. They are built 160 feet into the ground to provide maximum support for a facility that weighs an almost incomprehensible 7,760 tons. That’s the equivalent of 130 elephants. Eat your heart out, Animal Kingdom!
In the era of multi-billion dollar purchases such as Pixar and Star Wars, we sometimes forget that Disney once faced significant budgetary constraints. Even after they took on $400 million in debt, they continued to find ways to increase the value of their theme parks for visiting guests. Many of the architectural triumphs we take for granted today wouldn’t have been possible for even the best designers of that era, even if they’d had limitless budgets. Disney’s Imagineers continually turned seeming disadvantages such as limited financing, governmental regulations and lack of raw materials into long-term advantages. Rather than be dissuaded from their ultimate goal of building these majestic attractions, they simply prioritized the ones that were more feasible in the short-term. Then, once they had more money and benefited from technological advances, they crafted better rides in the same locations. When you visit Walt Disney World, every architectural accomplishment is also a monument to the ingenuity and perseverance of Disney Imagineers.
