Maintaining The Illusion
Techniques for hiding these industrial nature of these buildings from the eyes of park guests vary. The most common ways include planting foliage to obstruct the views, adding themed exteriors to the visible areas, painting visible surfaces with colors that camouflage with the surroundings, and adding mounds of earth (berms) or solid walls between the guests and the buildings. They may also be built partially or completely below ground level. Disneyland, for instance, contains many show buildings, some of which are disguised on all sides. One example is the building containing Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Peter Pan's Flight, and Alice in Wonderland, which features themed facades of castle walls and a quaint European village. On the other hand, attractions such as the Haunted Mansion take an entirely different approach. Most of that experience takes place within a green show building hidden backstage, with a berm hiding it from the visible themed "mansion", which is connected to the show building via an underground passage. All of the Disney theme parks make use of similar techniques to some extent.
Some theme parks take less rigorous approaches. Universal Studios Hollywood hides many of its show buildings in the same fashion, but other buildings, such as the one housing Revenge of the Mummy, are allowed to remain (as a whole or in part) as real-world examples of utilitarian sound stages. Some establishments may make no attempt at hiding show buildings from the eyes of guests and/or people outside the property, usually due to the cost involved, preexisting space limitations, and/or lack of interest in hiding the structures. For instance, all the buildings of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk are clearly visible from Beach Street, which passes directly behind them. Similarly, the show building at Knott's Berry Farm that formerly contained Kingdom of the Dinosaurs is clearly visible from Western Avenue, just a few yards away.
Read more about this topic: Show Building
Famous quotes containing the words maintaining the, maintaining and/or illusion:
“Good critical writing is measured by the perception and evaluation of the subject; bad critical writing by the necessity of maintaining the professional standing of the critic.”
—Raymond Chandler (18881959)
“The government of the United States is a device for maintaining in perpetuity the rights of the people, with the ultimate extinction of all privileged classes.”
—Calvin Coolidge (18721933)
“Pilate with his question What is truth? is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (18441900)