The House of the Future at Disneyland has always fascinated me, because it is so UN-Disneyland! Sponsored by Monsanto, it greeted guests at the entrance to Tomorrowland, but also bordering on Fantasyland. These two images are from August 1960. I’m not sure if designers Marvin Goody and Richard Clancy intended a nod to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, but it would certainly appear that way when you see this mini-waterfall feature underneath the home made of plastic.
The House of the Future was removed to make way for…the future, so it barely lasted ten years. Even after its removal, once could see traces of it. Below, you can see that when the area was changed to Alpine Gardens (tying it into the nearby Matterhorn), the fountains from Monsanto remained.
The signage for Alpine Gardens:
These two images are from late 1964 and show guests lounging (?) on the mod sculptures that resided outside the House of the Future.
I wonder what happened to them? The sculptures…not the guests!
To give you an idea of where the House was located, here’s a fantastic aerial view taken from the Skyway, circa March 1965:
More gems from August 1960 to come!
See more Disneyland House of the Future photos at my main website.
3 comments:
My favorite part of this house is often the least mentioned. I've only seen it in concept drawings, but the idea was you could park your car in a "garage" under one of the four wings. Not an enclosed garage but at the very least a covering that you could park under and unload groceries while it was raining. Thanks for the far-away shot too. The closeups may show detail but I never get the orientation without the wide angle shot.
Another brilliant article, I look forward to these. Your friend Adam from LA
Thanks for stopping by, Adan - much appreciated!
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