Welton Becket - the Unofficial Imagineer

Walt Disney and Welton Becket surveying the model for the GE Pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair | Photo: (c) Disney

It was sometime in 1953 and Walt Disney was discussing his latest project, Disneyland, to his neighbor in Holmby Hills. He discussed the issues that plagued the development. The biggest being that the architecture firm he had hired to design the park did not seem to understand his vision for the park. His neighbor replied by telling him to ditch the outside architects and instead look to the art directors and artists to design the place. They would understand his vision. Walt took the advice seriously and within the year, WED Enterprises was established, featuring a new design organization complete with those who understood what Disneyland was all about. It was the beginning of Imagineering.

The neighbor and friend that suggested Walt to use his own people was Welton Becket. Welton Becket was an architect himself, one of the most prominent. His firm, Welton Becket & Associates was the largest architecture firm in the world. His buildings were built all over the world and in almost every major city. His architecture was heralded as innovative and defined the architecture 1950s Los Angeles. He was also a crucial part of the creation of not only Disneyland but also Walt Disney World. His friendship with Walt Disney and collaboration with him would make Welton Becket an unofficial Imagineer, whose influence would help create the Disney parks we know and love.

The World's Fair

The first major collaboration between Walt Disney and Welton Becket would come in the early 1960s. Walt used the 1964 World's Fair in New York as an opportunity to create new and innovative shows. Similarly, Welton was using the fair as an opportunity to design innovative buildings. Welton joined Walt to design two of the four pavilions Disney was working for the fair. The first was the Ford Magic Skyway and the second was General Electric's Progressland, featuring the Carousel of Progress. Welton's designs for these two pavilions would become two of the most iconic buildings at the fair.

For the Ford Pavilion, Becket's team worked with Imagineering to make sure that the building and the show inside would fit. Several sketches were made between Becket and Imagineering. Eventually, Becket's "Wonder Rotunda" concept became the look for the pavilion. The Wonder Rotunda was a two-story glass rotunda and marked the entrance to the pavilion. Sixty-four pylons each standing one hundred feet tall would create a unique and interesting exterior. Guests would board their Ford cars on the second floor and take a long tube outside of the rotunda and make their way into the back half of the pavilion where a large windowless show building was located and the attraction through time would begin. The iconic Wonder Rotunda design would inspire the look of a number of Ford dealerships throughout the country.

The second and probably most impressive was the GE Pavilion. Nestled on a prime spot near the main avenue of the fair and along the shores of the Pool of Industry, Progressland featured a large collection of exhibits, including the classic Carousel of Progress. Unlike the Ford Pavilion, which held one attraction and an exhibit space, the GE Pavilion have a large theater show and two exhibits, and it was important for Becket to create a pavilion that not only worked well as a pavilion, but was also pretty to look at. Guests took a Speedramp up to the second floor where they would take their seat in the Carousel of Progress theater. After the finale of the show, the audience would get up and go onto the stage to take another Speedramp up to the large dome for the Sky-Dome Spectacular. Here, guests would see projections of various energy sources and how they could help people in the future. Guests would then move downstairs to see the Medallion City exhibit, which featured displays on the benefits of an all-electric city.

The building stood eight feet tall and two hundred feet in diameter. The dome comprised of a network of pipes that held up the dome's roof. The type of dome featured on the pavilion was known as curvilinear lamella. At the time, this form of dome was the most effective. It would not be until 1967 when Buckminster Fuller would unveil the world's first geodesic dome as part of the Montreal World's Fair.

The most dazzling of the dome's features was the use of an innovative lighting design that illuminated the dome with a total of 2,112 dichromatic-filter spotlights. The lights danced around the dome and became a must-see for fairgoers at night. It joined with its neighbor, the Tower of Light as one of the most beautifully lit pavilions at the World's Fair.

After the World's Fair, Welton went back to designing buildings and Walt would go on adding new additions to Disneyland, but their paths would cross again as Walt's ambition turned to Central Florida and the idea for a city of the future.

EPCOT

When Walt Disney began seriously thinking of a city of the future he called again on his friend Welton. In 1963, Welton Becket was in the mist of designing a city within a city on the border of Beverly Hills on the site of the 20th Century Fox backlot known as Century City. The plans for Century City featured everything that residents of Walt's EPCOT would have--places to work, places to live, and place for entertainment. Welton's Century City also did something innovative for the time; he separated car traffic and pedestrian traffic so that a resident would never have to cross a busy street to get around town. It was this thinking that Walt Disney was looking for when designing EPCOT.

Walt hired Becket to design a master plan for EPCOT. The results were very similar to Century City, but Walt felt that the architecture was cold and uninviting. Welton would offer up the same advice he gave him in the 1950s, Walt should use his own team to design his city. Walt again took his advice and art director Marvin Davis was brought on to design the master plan for EPCOT, including the city's towering Cosmopolitan Hotel. This was not the end of Welton's involvement with Disney. In fact, his next chapter with Disney would be his most influential and where he would earn the moniker as an unofficial Imagineer.

Walt Disney World

When Walt died in 1966, EPCOT died right along with him. Roy Disney, however, was dedicated to getting the first phase of Disney World opened, which would include the Magic Kingdom and its neighboring resort hotels. And it was here that Welton Becket returns to the scene. He would accompany Roy Disney and Imagineer Marty Sklar on the famous 1967 trip to the Florida site to oversee the land clearing of the Magic Kingdom. It was also in 1967 when the design for the two hotels began to pick up steam.

Welton was no stranger to designing hotels. He had designed some of the world's most dazzling hotels. He was Conrad Hilton's favorite architect and designed several hotels, including the Beverly Hilton, the Havana Hilton in Cuba, the Cairo Hilton and the Hawaiian Village in Honolulu. The last of those would be especially helpful in his work for the first hotel at the resort--the Polynesian Village Resort.

When work on the Polynesian began, Welton designed drew inspiration from the designs of the Hawaiian Village. The original design included a fourteen-story tower that would feature beautiful views of the Seven Seas Lagoon and the Magic Kingdom. The building would have risen like a volcano above the shoreline, with a brown color. In the end, though, Welton decided to design a more subtle tropical resort with three-story longhouses instead of the modernist tower. The work between Welton's firm and Imagineering created one of Walt Disney World's most popular resort.

For the next hotel, the Tempo Bay Resort Hotel, Welton would look to Atlanta, Georgia as the city's new Hyatt Regency was being hailed as the most innovative hotel in the world. Designed by John Portman, it featured a soaring atrium that brought the outside in. Originally, the hotel would have a square footprint, but the idea was refined and the iconic A-fram design was created and moved to its current location between the Seven Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake. It was also with the new design that the Walt Disney World Monorail would run through the hotel's signature atrium. The work on the now named Contemporary, Welton placed one of his top architects to act as liaison between the firm and Imagineering. The man's name was George Rester. George Rester would eventually join Imagineering and work on projects like Space Mountain and Epcot Center. George Rester would help bring Mary Blair's famous Grand Canyon Concourse mural into the hotel's atrium.

A Tribute to Welton Becket

Pan Pacific Auditorium | Photo (c) Wikipedia

Welton Becket died in 1969 and would not see his work on the Walt Disney World hotels completed. In the years since his death, Welton Becket's legacy outside of Disney has been mostly hidden. His buildings have remained iconic, but their architect has remained mostly forgotten. However, his legacy with Disney lives on. Though additions have been made to both the Contemporary and the Polynesian, both have retained their architectural integrity. Many of Welton's buildings are currently under threat of demolition, but at Disney, Welton Becket's buildings have remained. In fact, some of Welton's buildings not built for Disney have been able to see a second life.

Both California Adventure and Hollywood Studios feature entrances replicating the look of the old Pan Pacific Auditorium, which was designed in 1935 but demolished in 1989. It was the first building designed by Welton Becket after he graduated from college. Though not intentionally designed to be a tribute to him, it is still a fitting tribute to the unofficial Imagineer whose advice to a friend would change the history of the Disney theme park, forever.

Photo: (c) DisTripping.com