Abandoned - Disney's Communicore / Innoventions

What's up guys? My name is Jake and welcome to

abandoned

episode 70. When Disney's Epcot Center opened in 1982, the center of the park featured two massive kidney-shaped buildings that conceptually linked the entire future world section and really the rest of the park. It greatly embodied the spirit and purpose of Epcot, complemented the pavilions that populated it and expanded the scope of science and technology, making it a fun and enjoyable experience for its visitors, but after a while and little more than one A decade later, that spirit and purpose changed and the buildings were renamed interventions and if you visited Epcot before its eventual closure, you would know that the inside experience wasn't exactly a must-do;

In fact, those internal attractions and exhibits were slowly closed over time until large sections of these buildings were eventually closed. shut down and the contents inside were

abandoned

, so join me today to discover what

communicore

once was, how it changed so drastically over the years, and discover what ambitious changes are on the horizon that could even be abandoned. This is the Epcot Center

communicore

. This episode has been brought to you by Curiositystream. Get additional access to my Nebula streaming service when you sign up for Curiositystream using the link in the description below. After the Magic Kingdom opened in 1971, the Walt Disney Company was moving forward with developing a second gate to its Florida site retains the same name as Walt Disney's Epcot, but instead opts for a public display of culture, history and technology, a kind of permanent world fair.

This park went through many radical design changes, mainly in where it was located, how the sections would be divided, and the overall designs, including in the early designs of the late 1970s, the concept of central buildings to complement their surroundings, called Communcore. , remained fairly consistent across all of them. The concepts behind these flanking buildings remained the same, as they were intended to expand on the ideas presented in each of the Future World pavilions while also acting as a sort of US Main Street for Epcot which houses not only attractions but also food and retail offerings at the crossroads of the future world is the communicator that the people at Disney call the main street of tomorrow. a marketplace of ideas where the public will have the hands-on opportunity to try out the products and concepts of the future.

The ultra-modern buildings were labeled as the global marketplace of new ideas and would incorporate the use of high-tech computers that would allow people to access world information and even plan their Disney vacation itinerary in later Epcot designs, although the execution of This began to change as did the philosophy and vision of the entire park, focusing more on entertainment mixed with education rather than just the latter with corporate sponsors secured. In a finalized concept of both the exterior buildings and its interior exhibits, construction on Epcot Center began in 1979, with Communicore being one of the last structures to take shape just months before its opening in October 1982.

Communicore opened alongside with the rest of the park. on October 1 and featured a wide variety of attractions and exhibits, communicore was divided into two buildings with technically four structures, two sides under a continuous roof covering two open-air hallways. We will start with this communicore, which acted as a gateway to the universe of the energy world. of movement and later horizons and wonders of life inside, you would find the great Stargate quick-service restaurants and displays of companies like American Express and Exxon. There was also a computer center that was introduced by Sperry Univac Epcot, after all it opened its doors at the dawn of the consumer. era of computers and it made sense for communicore to be a showcase of this new technology for many computer centers.

It was the first time people had seen computers, much less tried a touch screen. The other half of the building featured the multi-level Centaurium store. which was epcot's version of the main street emporium, there was also the News Choice theater which broadcast live satellite news and contained the Future Choice theater where guests could express opinions on current events and take polls in a live forum and pass to Comunicore West Bell Systems Futurecom. It took over a large section of the building with a massive interactive exhibit, further down were information centers for teachers who were on field trips and a display of future Epcot attractions and information.

Sunshine Terrace was another restaurant that eventually acted as a quick service restaurant in the building. It was a large space reserved for a future tron ​​arcade themed attraction and went quite far in its development, but it was never actually built and a robotics exhibition took its place in 1988. Between both communication structures there would be walkways for guests that they would cross a small series of pawns. Further down, further down, the Fountain of Nations would serve as the gateway to the rest of the park in the world's showcase. This was just the beginning, although as the community buildings were designed to expand, the thought process was that when Epcot was entering its second phase of building exhibits within communicore they could expand with new physical space, so the buildings They were designed to be circular with room to expand up to the monorail beam.

Speaking of transportation, the main corridors within each building were intentionally designed to be over 20 feet tall and completely open, this was to accommodate the transportation system of people that was designed to circulate through future worlds as well as in the magical kingdom of tomorrow. The future world would also have a Wedwey people mover system that would transport visitors around the first half of the park traveling directly via the communicator. concourses now, these massive extensions never occurred, apart from a small rotunda around the centorium and a fairly large expansion on the northwest building, the rest were canceled mainly for budgetary reasons, but it showed the wide scope the Imagineers had for the area, regardless.

In keeping with the spirit of Epcot Center, many exhibits served their purpose and did a great job of educating people about other attractions, although Future Choice Theater was not as successful as many expected, not There is no doubt that exhibitions sponsored by companies like Exxon also had a clear bias in the type of information they showed to the public, but otherwise communicore stood strong for many years as a place for people to learn, relax, I ate and bought futuristic toys and Epcot merchandise at the Centorium retail store, but things were changing. in the company and the era of leadership that designed and built Epcot was now being replaced Michael Eisner became the company's new CEO tasked with guiding the company through financial ruin and a hostile takeover, primarily in part because shareholders thought the company was spending too much money on epcot center, which i mean they did while communicore continued to operate with its exhibits changed to periodically updated ones in the early 90s, walt

disney

world resort as a whole was expanding quite rapidly with Epcot Center preparing for an upgrade that didn't really fully materialize until the end of the decade, but management was determined to revamp the Main Street version of Epcot which, of course, was forthcoming.

Apparently, Michael Eisner had recently visited CES or the consumer electronics show and thought it would be a good idea to replace the existing science and technology-based exhibits with a new cohesive theme of futuristic consumer technology, so the Imagineers began to create something tangible with this new idea. Disney later announced that the Interventions would replace communicore in the mid-1990s, so the in-house exhibits began closing between 1993 and '94 with major renovations beginning shortly after the East and Westbound Interventions opening on 1 July 1994 with quite a different look marvel at the car that never needs gas check it out play the most Sega games anywhere watch a bigger TV make your living room see a bathroom you clean in the home of the future talk with a phone that you wear on your wrist you will never guess where we are calling you from fly in virtual reality try a thousand new inventions that will change your life forever innovations at epcot 94. basically the design philosophy for this iteration was to reduce the natural light of the enormous original Communcore windows and generally separating the spaces by making everything darker to offset the interactive shows and exhibits would be bold and bright, using a lot of neon and making the design blend together so much. as much as possible, I guess giving the idea of ​​excitement and lots to do, it was all extremely 90s and very busy from a design perspective, sort of a trend in the future world at the time that could be seen in the global neighborhood and subsequent interventions on the test track also included a much smaller exhibits from many more private sponsors, including Honeywell Lego Sega IBM Ge GM and even Apple computers and that's just scratching the surface, there were many more umbrellas electric and a pasta pizza restaurant took over the food options and the mouse team would replace the centaurium.

A character encounter was also added to the space and foliage was planted around the outside of the interventions which blocked the huge windows again, leaving less light inside. Most elevation changes within the structures were removed or paved over to keep everything on a single level. making the whole space seem a little less dynamic, all of this eventually caused problems as visitors often got lost as the overall atmosphere was so busy and so dark that it was a bit difficult to navigate, so only five years after upon opening, both buildings collapsed. The renovation now adds a cartoon highway on the floor to help people create a linear path.

The motto "Road to Tomorrow" was added to the name, making the theme a little more coherent. The idea of ​​corporate sponsors showcasing new technology in a single format. an interesting one and at a trade show it works quite well as all the attendees are mainly press in the interventions, although it seemed quite tacky overall, some displays were literally just advertisements for future products for that company, which 9 out of 10 times never much happened. It was incredibly cheesy, but some were interesting, like the house of the future, which was the most futuristic house of the 90s, although they did get some futuristic technology.

It was all finished just in time for Epcot's millennium celebration and really marked not only a new aesthetic. design scheme for the entire park, but a general change of direction as a whole with only a hideous Mickey wand extending over spaceship Earth and now the horizons, the world's excitement, the energy universe, all permanently closed. The future of Epcot was indeed changing rapidly in the early 2000s. Some of the exhibits had been changed and completely new sections opened such as an ice station to cool a Coca-Cola retail store at this time the restaurant pasta and pizza closed permanently and the space is now used here for character meet and greets in the central plaza.

A new pin exchange booth was installed as the center of a new canopy structure covering almost half of the main roads that have disappeared now that the ponds beneath were replaced by concrete, although it wouldn't be until 2007 that more significant changes were made to the interventions. former pasta pizza restaurant space, still don't understand why they called it that, what a terrible name anyway, it became a permanent character meet and greet this year, also the neon signs were removed and the theme replaced outdoor by a very simple and 2007 Logo, there is no doubt that these exhibits began to look a little tired and perhaps a little dated, but new exhibits and attractions such as the great piggy bank adventure were being added to their credits sponsored by T Rowe Price, an investment firm, okay, and this adds up to everything. thrills presented by raytheon which ended up in interventions in the east some of all the thrills were really cool it opened in 2009 and was a state of the art simulator where you can build your own roller coaster and then ride itvirtually in virtual reality. on a robotic arm with a fairly wide range of motion, this attraction was also the last attraction built at Epcot that wasn't based on any existing IP, so that's depressing. 2012 also saw some additions such as Habitat Heroes and the Vision House, which was a modern one.

Adopt the original futuristic home tour concept, everything was fine, but if you toured the interventions during this era, clearly the visitor appeal was not what it was and the temporary walls began to take up more and more wall space as that the exhibits were closing one by one. By far the most popular attraction there was some of all the thrills which presumably accounted for most of the foot traffic within the interventions by 2014 there were only seven unique exhibits left within both buildings and by the following year a very interesting announcement was made that Disney confirmed with Orlando. sentinel that West Interventions would close in May a company spokesperson said quote we have reached the end of our sponsorship agreements with exhibitors at West Interventions and will temporarily close the space in early May to begin preparing for a new experience this new However , the experience was never specified, so the entire pavilion closed in early 2015, leaving only Starbucks, a character, places, Disney art and club, cool, the new coke store name, the rest of the building Left unused, both buildings were also repainted with a disconcerting new design. which I really hate inside, the rest was more or less abandoned, while guests could still walk through the strange state limbo corridor that was now closed from the previous exhibits regarding the interventions to the east in 2016, and everything tended to an eventual closure surprisingly. a new exhibition called colortopia presented by glidden opened and then another show presented by miurata manufacturing, which apparently meant new life for the interventions at the same time that the heroes of the habitat and some of all the emotions were permanently closed as hosts of vision and some Others had already closed the year before, leaving only Colortopia, a show that often doesn't run, and a small nanoresearch exhibit that opened in 2010.

The rest, including some of All the Thrills, were left in place behind a wall temporary work station that had been placed there since its closure, the lights behind the walls were off, but the huge unlit billboards could still be clearly seen above them, small cracks in the fence showing the abandoned attractions still standing. Its place was shaking and not in use with the old road to tomorrow leading nowhere, it was quite symbolic of the future for the interventions and this is how things would remain for years to come. The development plans for the buildings and really all of Epcot had been in the works.

For a considerable time, Disney, of course, stated that it intended to bring a new experience to the interventions in the west, but after that 2015 announcement nothing happened. These redevelopment plans can somehow date back to the early 2000s with a project that never got off the ground called Epcot Discoveryland. This plan calls for what appear to be sections of interventions to be demolished, leaving the rest standing and remaining as fragmented individual sites. The trees would now fill the plaza and much more would be changed or added to the In the rest of the future world, this plan never materialized due to the cost and the state of management at the upper levels of the company, it would not be until around 2015, when these plans started to heat up again in this leaked concept art from around 2016-17.

We can see a fairly scaled down but clear overhaul of the Epcot hub. In it we can see that the continuous roof coverings over the entrance doors to the future world sections would now be open trees and flower pots would fill the plaza. New lighting and modern designs for the intervention buildings. would take shape and some small futuristic structures would be added, really all of this would have significantly improved what already existed, surprisingly, although this was never made public and it seems that in this rare case, Epcot's redevelopment budget would only increase from here in July of 2017.

Disney officially announced its ambitious intentions for Epcots. That's when they announced a bunch of new stuff, not so cool in my opinion, but they did show some concept art of the center. In this rough overview, the issue of foliage taking up much of the terrain is pretty clear. Also clear is the complete removal of interventions now, this was a rough drawing of the general direction the team was going and nothing here was really concrete that it wouldn't arrive until around summer 2019, when the actual concept art and details of this new overhaul for epcot were released and oh boy, it was a lot.

I'm going to keep everything in the context of the interventions for time reasons here, but basically three new neighborhoods were announced as a global celebration of world discovery and world nature, this would split the future world and actually replace the name of the future world for the east and the west now in this conceptual art you will notice that the eastern interventions in fact remain standing, however, the western interventions would be demolished built on its enormous footprint would be two structures first, the journey of water, a water path tour that is inspired by moana Second and most striking is the new festival center, a modern structure specially designed to host Epcot's various annual festivals, this would also have several functions with a ground floor plaza and a floor to ceiling. glazed exhibition level and a rooftop park, it is really a striking piece of architecture and quite beautiful in terms of the interventions to the east, while that building would be made up of a new restaurant called Connections Cafe and Eatery, a replacement for the store mouse supply retailer called the Creation Shop and a new home for the club's relocated fashion store, the center is also set for a dramatic transformation with the removal of the Nations Fountain, now replaced by a much smaller fountain, somewhat with the same spirit that surrounds it, they would be abstract and colorful art installations distributed with a great emphasis on flowing natural environments, all of this was planned to be built by 2023.

Yes, during all this time the interventions were still open, The small portion of the interventions that wasn't a hallway or a disconnected meet and greet was incredibly depressing, it was more or less a place for visitors to escape the heat of central Florida and I bet very few people knew it was here. Disney closed the remaining exhibits and closed the doors of Interventions East on September 7, 2019. Shortly after, in July 2020, Interventions West was closed. A long working wall was raised and erected around the fountain and the southern half of the building, where demolition eventually began, as a considerable amount of the structure was being torn down around the world and its major businesses began to go into business. a state of panic because the new coronavirus was spreading. spread around the world and much of the US went into lockdown, this caused Disney to react quite dramatically at Epcot and in fact all of Disney's US theme parks were closed indefinitely at the end of March, so It's a bad time for such a massive project underway to get things done.

Worse yet, bob iger, the company's CEO was in the process of handing over his executive position to then-head of parks and resorts, bob chapeck, a person who is not exactly beloved in the theme park community during this time and , unlike Universal Disney, basically stopped all construction, not just at Epcots, but virtually every major project they had active, while the parks finally reopened in July, Disney ended 2020 with a net loss of over 2.4 billion of dollars in its parks division, causing the company to shift its investment strategy to divisions that were winning. money at the time as Disney Plus and by 2021 investment in its parks division had dropped more than $1.8 billion since 2019, a level of investment that had not been this low since 2013.

So it would make sense why epcot center continued to stay. In a state of basically limbo and abandoned, demolition of the interventions in the west only got halfway done before everything ground to a halt for almost a year. The interventions in the east were the same and continued basically intact until early 2021, when very slow work began in the creation workshop at the south end of the east building of the old interventions, meanwhile, in March, the entire west building had finally been demolished in September 2021, the creation store location finally opened, marking the first development of the building that will reopen to the public shortly after, in October, the new club.

A cool shop has also opened, but what about the interventions on the west site? The journey of water finally began to see significant progress in early 2022, as for the center of the festival, the site where it is supposed to go has remained intact and foliage now runs through this location. site in question and soon Disney removed their model of the Epcot preview center and made a statement calling it a newly reimagined festival area, so who knows what that means, but I think it could be firmly assumed that the old piece central to all of this The new Epcot Hub experience no longer has the impressive scale it once had and that brings us to now with fairly slow development across all of the parks with the latest interventions in the east development as the restaurant is will open in 2022, the rest will likely be a While it's been a long journey from where we came with two buildings central to Epcot Center's philosophy, a wild ride of ups and downs to this eventual arduous remodel, Communcore was the tie that was supposed to unite the whole future world.

Together we expanded on the many ideas the park posed to visitors while providing millions of people with great memories. Not everything was a success. I can't say that everyone loved it. In fact, much of it was experimental and much of it was corporate. it was pretty forgettable when it moved on to interventions, it kept that spirit but it got lost in the company and the rapidly changing world in the 2000s, it was nothing more than a pretty bad and cheap looking children's museum that was reliant on those sponsors corporate that really looked more like advertisements disguised as games, in the end no one knew what to do with it and left it in a pretty shockingly bad state for many years, large sections of it were completely abandoned right in the middle of the park, at least in 2012 , the whole plaza was looking pretty tired and no attempt at a weirdly awful livery would change the fact that this looks like complete and utter rubbish.

I'll be honest, I'm pretty cynical and very skeptical of the Disney company today and especially how they're going to take Epcot from here. It was a very big piece of the puzzle for a very special and unique park and its current trajectory is making it more of the same, which I think is a big mistake in the long run if I learned anything from making these videos for so long. is that everyone is interested in learning about new things in a respectful and non-indulgent way. communicore probably wouldn't work today, but I think if it were adapted appropriately and respectfully for a modern audience it would be pretty unique, regardless of what I'll say. everything that has been built within communicore this has only been profit centers and there is no real substantial experience on the exteriors of the building and to see it return to its modern version of the original concept is great to see, it is also good to see those huge Windows was used once again, even if it's just for a painfully basic retail store inside, I'm not sure how this topic relates to Epcot, but it's okay, I think if they are able to see through their vision and promises of 2019, especially for the plaza, I think that will really do it. in some ways at least respect the original vision of epcot, though how long that will end up taking is anyone's guess, but i think as long as there is a reminder of communicore's past that still stands today, we will always remember its purpose to inspire and inform a new generation more than 40 years ago, let's remember that even before all this happened, it all started with the vision of epcot, just a year before walt

disney

made its official announcement at epcot, the company began purchasing land in florida if we follow the company timeline. a year before Walt Disney pitchers released the Mary Poppins movie, which also happens to be an ip that wasintended to be brought to the new Epcot but was also abandoned or put on hold.

There's actually a really interesting documentary about the real story. behind the infamous production of that film and the strained relationship between walt disney and pl travers, fortunately if you are interested in seeing it you can find it in this video sponsor. curiosities curiosities is a streaming service focused on curating high-quality nonfiction titles and documentaries. On all kinds of topics, Curiosity Stream has also been a great support for creators like me and because of that they have partnered with the streaming service that I helped create Nebula. Many times my fellow creators can't upload certain types of videos, either they're too long or they contain a sensitive story that YouTube loves to demonetize, so Nebula was designed to be a place where people can go and provide special content. and exclusive just for you on my channel.

There you can watch these videos a day early and without ads, but nebula also features a ton of exclusive original content that you can't find anywhere else, so if you sign up using my link Curiousstream.combsf you will get 26 off an annual plan which costs only 14.79 per year to get access to two amazing streams. platforms anyway guys my name is jake and thanks so much for watching we just