The town of Celebration, designed and built by the Disney Corporation near Orlando,
Florida, is certainly the most prominent—and perhaps the most controversial—of the
second generation of New Urbanism green-field projects. It followed the sole firstgeneration
new town, Seaside, Florida, by about ten years.
Celebration is the New Urbanist stepchild of Walt Disney’s original vision of EPCOT,
the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. Presented in 1966, the drawings
and the animated film showed a full-fledged city, organized as a radial system with
Entries A–F 425
business and commerce at the center, higher density apartments around a greenbelt, and
an outer ring of clean factories and low-density neighborhoods. Shelved at Disney’s
death, the concept of the “Model City” was revived in the late 1980s under the direction
chief operating officer Michael Eisner.
The design of what became Celebration was protracted over many years because it
involved the careful testing of every facet of the project. Among the sources of
inspiration were the reassessed tradition of the Anglo-American suburb, the new towns of
John Nolen (1869–1937), Seaside, Florida, and other examples selected from Werner
Hegemann and Elbert Peet’s The American Vitruvius (1922). Following a series of competitions involving
architects including Duany and Plater-Zyberk, Robert A.M. Stern, Gwathmey and Siegel,
Helmut Jahn, and Charles Moore, the final master plan was the work of Stern, with
Jaquelin Robertson and Associates. The town was officially launched on the 25th
anniversary of Disney World in October 1996.
Buffered from the highway by golf courses and a 4,700-acre greenbelt of wetlands, the
plan of Celebration remotely resembles EPCOT’s original concept. The half-circular and
radial plan of streets and neighborhoods, distorted by the environmental constraints,
focuses on an artificial lake along which the mixed-use town center develops. A wide
waterfront promenade, complete with a stepped embarcadero, parks, and fountains,
harbors a series of restaurants and cafes stretching from the cinema complex (designed by
Cesar Pelli) to the hotel. The one-block-long Main Street departs from the lake and
terminates in a square, identified by the 52 columns of the town hall (designed by Philip
Johnson), the circular post office (designed by Michael Graves), and the preview center
(by Moore/Anderson Architects) with its Outlook Tower. The public school (by William
Rawn), whose entrance faces a British-like crescent of town houses, is exceptionally
neighborhood friendly.
Inspired by Frederick Law Olmsted’s “Emerald Necklace” (Boston, 1878–95) and
Martin Wagner’s diagram for the greening of Berlin (1910), a system of “green fingers”
penetrates into the town and articulates its neighborhoods. One finger prolongs the main
street, which widens as a parkway on both sides of a canal and terminates at the golf
course; another one bisects the school’s property and embraces its playing fields. Smaller
parks, creeks, and lakes remind of nearby Winter Park—another major inspiration for the
design.
Celebration depends on connectivity and diversity: a system of navigable streets and a
full range of housing types in addition to shops and office, school, and civic buildings.
Most interesting are the Main Street apartments above shops (the open-air circulation is
an innovative solution to the challenge of separate entrances) and the courtyard-type
apartments along the canal. To avoid some of Seaside’s problems, the mixed-use blocks
of the center contain landscaped parking lots, and alleys give access to the private
residential garages. Yet, diversity also meant some concession to more traditional zoning.
The isolated office park or Celebration Place—two of the three buildings centered around
an obelisk were designed by Aldo Rossi and completed in 1996—faces the regional
highway; nearby and in visual contact with the town center is the community hospital.
Residential-only satellite neighborhoods, organized around greens, are not quite in
walking distance of the center.
The controversy swirling around Celebration, eliciting two books in 1999 as well as
countless articles, is due less to its design than to its controlling concept. Its government
Encyclopedia of 20th-century architecture 426
is, in fact, a private association—not unlike the tens of thousands of homeowners’ or
property owners’ associations, both common in the suburbs and increasingly in inner
cities across the 50 states; yet, it was attacked as a first case of “private government by
corporation.” Most critics focused on the failure of the original public school’s
curriculum, conceived by Disney in collaboration with the Harvard School of Education.
The experimental curriculum did not match the more conservative aspirations of the
parents, and their civic dissatisfaction was presented as a failure in building a genuine
community. Eventually, they succeeded in changing the course of the school.
Another controversial factor is the code or pattern book, written by Ray Gindroz of
Urban Design Associates (Pittsburgh), that strictly defines the six permitted styles:
Classical, Victorian, Colonial Revival, Coastal, Mediterranean, and French. The issue of
individual freedom has been raised, as the precision and inflexibility of the code are
unmatched in New Urbanism communities. However, the choice made in Celebration
was to risk eliminating the exceptionally good design in order to avoid the kitsch and the
very bad. As a mitigating factor, the civic structures and the mixed-use buildings along
Main Street were not coded, but rather commissioned to first-rate architects who worked
closely together.
Disney’s decision to put the centrally managed main street and shops at the very
center of the community and away from the main highway was well supported by the
residents afraid of the impact of regional traffic on the community. Yet the development
industry accused Disney of infringing one of the tenets of commercial practice, thus
making the project unsustainable without subsidies—an allegation that Disney has
strongly denied.
The most influential new town since Radburn, New Jersey (started in 1929),
Celebration is being built out as planned—the alternative model to traditional suburban
sprawl. However, its garden city-like density, its limited capacity for growth, and the
absence of a structuring (local and regional) transportation system preclude its being the
long-term solution to the challenge of smart growth in North America.
CATALAN (GUASTAVINO) VAULTS
This historic vaulting technique, popular in Spain and the United States in the early 20th
century, is also called “cohesive construction,” “timbrel vault,” “laminated vault,” voûte Rouss ilon (in
France), bóveda tabicada (“board vault,” in Spain), and volta a foglia (“layered vault” in Italy). It uses thin, flat clay
tiles (about 12 by 6 by 5/8 inches) in laminated shell structures, assembled with an
extremely adhesive and fast-drying mortar into vaults, normally in three or more layers of
overlapping tiles. The enormous stability stems from two major factors: the convergence
of the tiles and mortar into a homogeneous, monolithic material that can absorb both
compression and tension and the thin (single or double) curved surfaces that obtain
additional strength by distributing them sideways as well as downward. Apart from being
fireproof, the vault is lighter than any other masonry vault and produces only minimal
lateral thrust at its springing points. As a result, it allows the placement of openings in the
Encyclopedia of 20th-century architecture 422
shell and the easy combination of several units and does not require outside buttressing or
reinforcement beams. Skilled workers can erect even large vaults without scaffolding or
formwork, as the lower rows of laminated clay tiles are usually strong enough when the
mortar has dried to carry the workers placing subsequent layers.
The roots of this vaulting technique can be traced back to medieval and even Roman
sources. The structure would typically be hidden from sight under plaster or suspended
ceilings or used as permanent formwork. The late 19th century developed a new interest
in the technique, which eventually flourished simultaneously in the first half of the 20th
century both in Catalonia, Spain, and in the United States.
In the 1860s it was rediscovered in Catalonia as a cheap method of vaulting spaces for
industrial buildings and warehouses. A prime example is the factory (1869–75; today
called The Clock Building) for the Battlò brothers in Barcelona by Rafael Guastavino.
Father and son Rafael Guastavino exhibited the method with great success at the
Philadelphia World’s Fair and subsequently proceeded to introduce the technique to the
United States. The Guastavino Company (1885–1963) held 24 patents and was involved
in the construction of more than 1,000 buildings all across the United States, Canada, and
11 other countries. During the 40 most active years of the company, the Guastavinos
worked on some of the most spectacular public buildings of the day, including the Boston
Public Library (McKim, Mead and White, 1898), Grand Central Terminal (Warren and
Wetmore, 1913), and Pennsylvania Station (McKim, Mead and White, 1911) in New
York, as well as private commissions, including the Biltmore Estate (Richard Morris
Hunt, 1895) in Asheville, North Carolina. The widest span ever to be achieved with
Guastavino tiles is the 66-foot-wide dome above the crossing of the cathedral of St. John
the Divine (Cram and Ferguson, 1893 and later) in New York. Although American
architects used Guastavino tiles mostly for conventional vaults and domes in historicist
architecture, they frequently chose to expose the typical fish-grate pattern of the tiles on
the underside of a vault or dome without any ornamental embellishment. These patterns
can still be found in countless public structures.
Simultaneously, the method gained popularity among the architects of the Catalan Modernismo
movement in northeastern Spain. (Although several medieval applications in Catalonia
are known, there is no evidence that the method was exclusive to this region or had
originated there.) Fired by a search for an independent Catalan architectural expression,
several architects fully exploited the technique’s structural and expressive potential for
complex vaults, undulating walls, and rolling ceilings. Among the prime examples are
Antoni Gaudí’s small school building (1906) at the Sagrada Familia cathedral in
Barcelona, which features both a curvilinear outside wall and a wavelike roof structure.
Gaudí’s contemporary, Lluis Domènech i Montaner, used the technique in the Palau de la
Música Catalana (1905–08) and his Hospital de Sant Paul (1902–10), both in Barcelona.
Cèsar Martinell built more than 30 agricultural cooperatives using the tiles in Catalonia
between 1913 and 1919, and Lluís Muncunill i Parellada created perhaps the most radical
application of the technique in his textile factory, Aymerich Amat i Jover (1907–09) in
Terrassa, Catalonia, which features series of double-curved roof elements on cast-iron
posts that both shelter the interior and provide northern skylights.
Eventually, the use of the technique succumbed to rising labor costs and new, cheaper
building methods that began to dominate the building markets in the Western world after
World War II. There were only occasional later applications, as in Luis Moya Blanco’s
Entries A–F 423
St. Augustin church (1954) in Madrid or Le Corbusier’s use of simple, flat Catalan vaults
in his Maison Jaoul (1955) in Paris.
The two most spectacular applications since World War II have occurred outside the
highly industrialized Western building markets. A Catalan mason brought the vaulting
technique in the late 1950s to Cuba, where it was applied to the first major building
project of Fidel Castro’s government, a cluster of five art schools (Ricardo Porro, Vittorio
Garatti, Roberto Gottardi, 1961–65, unfinished) featuring spectacular sequences of domes
and barrel vaults.
The Uruguayan architect Eladio Dieste (b. 1917) has continuously applied
the central principles of the Catalan vault since the late 1950s and
improved it structurally by using steel reinforcement rods and tie bars in
conjunction with doublecurvature brick shells, thus increasing the span of
each unit. Among Dieste’s most stunning creations is a church (1958) in
Atlantida, Uruguay, with undulating walls and ceiling based on a principle
similar to that of Gaudí’s school at the Sagrada Familia.
Palau de la Música Catalana,
Barcelona (1908), designed by Lluis
Domènech i Montaner
Equally important is a warehouse (1960) in Montevideo that is spanned by double-curved
laminated shell structures similar to those in Lluis Muncunill’s 1909 textile factory in
Terrassa. The thin laminated masonry vaults have influenced the development of thin
concrete shells (for example, in the work of Spanish architects Edoardo Torroja and Felix
Candela) and Russian experiments with large vaults of prefabricated-concrete elements.
A renewed interest in the technique has led to attempts at reviving the vaulting technique
for the Western building market.
century, is also called “cohesive construction,” “timbrel vault,” “laminated vault,” voûte Rouss ilon (in
France), bóveda tabicada (“board vault,” in Spain), and volta a foglia (“layered vault” in Italy). It uses thin, flat clay
tiles (about 12 by 6 by 5/8 inches) in laminated shell structures, assembled with an
extremely adhesive and fast-drying mortar into vaults, normally in three or more layers of
overlapping tiles. The enormous stability stems from two major factors: the convergence
of the tiles and mortar into a homogeneous, monolithic material that can absorb both
compression and tension and the thin (single or double) curved surfaces that obtain
additional strength by distributing them sideways as well as downward. Apart from being
fireproof, the vault is lighter than any other masonry vault and produces only minimal
lateral thrust at its springing points. As a result, it allows the placement of openings in the
Encyclopedia of 20th-century architecture 422
shell and the easy combination of several units and does not require outside buttressing or
reinforcement beams. Skilled workers can erect even large vaults without scaffolding or
formwork, as the lower rows of laminated clay tiles are usually strong enough when the
mortar has dried to carry the workers placing subsequent layers.
The roots of this vaulting technique can be traced back to medieval and even Roman
sources. The structure would typically be hidden from sight under plaster or suspended
ceilings or used as permanent formwork. The late 19th century developed a new interest
in the technique, which eventually flourished simultaneously in the first half of the 20th
century both in Catalonia, Spain, and in the United States.
In the 1860s it was rediscovered in Catalonia as a cheap method of vaulting spaces for
industrial buildings and warehouses. A prime example is the factory (1869–75; today
called The Clock Building) for the Battlò brothers in Barcelona by Rafael Guastavino.
Father and son Rafael Guastavino exhibited the method with great success at the
Philadelphia World’s Fair and subsequently proceeded to introduce the technique to the
United States. The Guastavino Company (1885–1963) held 24 patents and was involved
in the construction of more than 1,000 buildings all across the United States, Canada, and
11 other countries. During the 40 most active years of the company, the Guastavinos
worked on some of the most spectacular public buildings of the day, including the Boston
Public Library (McKim, Mead and White, 1898), Grand Central Terminal (Warren and
Wetmore, 1913), and Pennsylvania Station (McKim, Mead and White, 1911) in New
York, as well as private commissions, including the Biltmore Estate (Richard Morris
Hunt, 1895) in Asheville, North Carolina. The widest span ever to be achieved with
Guastavino tiles is the 66-foot-wide dome above the crossing of the cathedral of St. John
the Divine (Cram and Ferguson, 1893 and later) in New York. Although American
architects used Guastavino tiles mostly for conventional vaults and domes in historicist
architecture, they frequently chose to expose the typical fish-grate pattern of the tiles on
the underside of a vault or dome without any ornamental embellishment. These patterns
can still be found in countless public structures.
Simultaneously, the method gained popularity among the architects of the Catalan Modernismo
movement in northeastern Spain. (Although several medieval applications in Catalonia
are known, there is no evidence that the method was exclusive to this region or had
originated there.) Fired by a search for an independent Catalan architectural expression,
several architects fully exploited the technique’s structural and expressive potential for
complex vaults, undulating walls, and rolling ceilings. Among the prime examples are
Antoni Gaudí’s small school building (1906) at the Sagrada Familia cathedral in
Barcelona, which features both a curvilinear outside wall and a wavelike roof structure.
Gaudí’s contemporary, Lluis Domènech i Montaner, used the technique in the Palau de la
Música Catalana (1905–08) and his Hospital de Sant Paul (1902–10), both in Barcelona.
Cèsar Martinell built more than 30 agricultural cooperatives using the tiles in Catalonia
between 1913 and 1919, and Lluís Muncunill i Parellada created perhaps the most radical
application of the technique in his textile factory, Aymerich Amat i Jover (1907–09) in
Terrassa, Catalonia, which features series of double-curved roof elements on cast-iron
posts that both shelter the interior and provide northern skylights.
Eventually, the use of the technique succumbed to rising labor costs and new, cheaper
building methods that began to dominate the building markets in the Western world after
World War II. There were only occasional later applications, as in Luis Moya Blanco’s
Entries A–F 423
St. Augustin church (1954) in Madrid or Le Corbusier’s use of simple, flat Catalan vaults
in his Maison Jaoul (1955) in Paris.
The two most spectacular applications since World War II have occurred outside the
highly industrialized Western building markets. A Catalan mason brought the vaulting
technique in the late 1950s to Cuba, where it was applied to the first major building
project of Fidel Castro’s government, a cluster of five art schools (Ricardo Porro, Vittorio
Garatti, Roberto Gottardi, 1961–65, unfinished) featuring spectacular sequences of domes
and barrel vaults.
The Uruguayan architect Eladio Dieste (b. 1917) has continuously applied
the central principles of the Catalan vault since the late 1950s and
improved it structurally by using steel reinforcement rods and tie bars in
conjunction with doublecurvature brick shells, thus increasing the span of
each unit. Among Dieste’s most stunning creations is a church (1958) in
Atlantida, Uruguay, with undulating walls and ceiling based on a principle
similar to that of Gaudí’s school at the Sagrada Familia.
Palau de la Música Catalana,
Barcelona (1908), designed by Lluis
Domènech i Montaner
Equally important is a warehouse (1960) in Montevideo that is spanned by double-curved
laminated shell structures similar to those in Lluis Muncunill’s 1909 textile factory in
Terrassa. The thin laminated masonry vaults have influenced the development of thin
concrete shells (for example, in the work of Spanish architects Edoardo Torroja and Felix
Candela) and Russian experiments with large vaults of prefabricated-concrete elements.
A renewed interest in the technique has led to attempts at reviving the vaulting technique
for the Western building market.
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