Main Street, U.S.A., elevation,
400 Block South, Disneyland;
Anaheim, California
1955

Walt Disney Imagineering Collection
© Disney

Main Street, U.S.A.

We enter the exhibition, as we enter each of the parks, at Main Street, U.S.A. Drawings of Main Street, U.S.A. present a streetscape based on Walt Disney's memories of his childhood town of Marceline, Missouri. With its scaled-down street fronts, Main Street evokes an ideal town as seen from the perspective of a child. Disney intended visitors to be filled with a sense of mastery, as if playing with model trains and dollhouses. The emphasis on walking and the ban on cars directly countered the chaotic suburban sprawl of the 1950s. The exhibition reveals how Disney turns our increasing bewilderment at the sprawling modern city into something soft, comforting, and controllable.

[Introduction]
[Imagineering]
[Fantasyland]
[Adventureland]
[Frontierland]
[Tomorrowland]
[Simulations]
[Theme Park Architecture in the Real World]