In the December 4, 1978, issue of New West, John Hench was interviewed and offered great advice and unique perspectives when it comes to creativity and design.
Regarding Disneyland and its environment, designed to flow like scenes through a script and to draw from the guests own personal experiences:
Walt understood the relation between scene one and scene two, he knew how to identify something and how to hold the identity due to something the Germans call gestalt. Nothing has an identity of its own until it’s related to something else. If you can control relation, you can control identity. …there are some practicing psychiatrists that happen to agree with us, that what we are selling is not escapism but reassurance.
In comparing Disneyland to not only amusement parks, but the outside world:
But here, when we come to a point in the park that we know is a decision point, we put two choices. We try not to give them seven or eight so that they have to decide in a qualitative way which is the best of those. You just give them two. Then we get the guy farther along and he has another choice, but we’re not giving him four to begin with. We unfold these things, so that they’re normal.
On Main Street:
There was never a Main Street like this one. But it reminds you of something about yourself that you’ve forgotten about.
And finally, once again, on Disneyland:
The essential message of Disneyland… is that “there is nothing to fear.” … Look how people who live in cities have to go somewhere in the country for vacation, and when that sense of natural order creeps back into their veins, they are quite different people. They talk to each other. When the birds are singing and there are green trees and the sun is coming down, they start to feel open and alive again. In the cities, we’re threatened. We don’t talk to people, we don’t believe everything we hear, we don’t look people in the eye – the whole thing is anti-survival. We don’t trust people. We find ourselves alone. If we keep pulling these blinds down and cutting ourselves off, we die a little bit.
The article is very much worth reading. The insights provided into the design of the park and its environment are truly inspiring.
BlankVinyl 