The Explorium

Chromatic Contemporary 


Unrealized plans from the 1980’s reveal concepts that would have totally modified the Contemporary Resort Hotel’s Grand Canyon Concourse.

In an effort to ditch the Southwest motif, the warm tones and textures of the Vacation Kingdom’s flagship hotel would have been muted, and replaced with pastels, greenery, and space age flair, perhaps to accent the Monorail’s dynamic role in the resort’s aesthetics.  Most horrifying of all? Mary Blair’s iconic mural would have been stripped away and replaced with a series of colorful waterfalls. 

Though these plans were never fully executed, a more space age look did dominate the Contemporary in the 80s. Thankfully, Mary Blair’s mural survived, and does so to this day. 

Posted 10 months ago
31 notes • View comments
Tagged: Research Post, Research, Blog, EE Research Post, Best of, EE, .
  1. wdwds reblogged this from epcotexplorer
  2. dpatty reblogged this from pureimagineering
  3. pureimagineering reblogged this from epcotexplorer and added:
    I’ll be That Guy. I don’t understand the Southwestern theme. Not that it’s impositional. But whenever the monorail...
  4. pli1018 reblogged this from epcotexplorer and added:
    Concourse at Walt Disney World. I think I...was removed. It’s
  5. miraculousspaceship reblogged this from epcotexplorer and added:
    Other than the awful idea to remove the mural, this is gorgeous concept art.
  6. andrewwashere reblogged this from epcotexplorer
  7. embarrassingusername said: It’s like if Wonders of Life threw up in there.
  8. albafound reblogged this from epcotexplorer
  9. gail-allan reblogged this from epcotexplorer
  10. epcotexplorer posted this
Blog comments powered by Disqus