From modernist utopia to postmodern simulacrum: Disney’s EPCOT, Celebration, and The Florida Project

<p dir="ltr">This thesis delves into Disney's architectural and urban design ambitions, tracing how its projects evolved from Walt Disney's mid-century utopia of EPCOT to the controlled aesthetic of Celebration, Florida, and finally to the fractured urban terrain shown in The Florida Project. This essay uses architectural and cinematic theory, including the works of Le Corbusier, Ebenezer Howard, Robert Venturi, and Jean Baudrillard, to analyze how Disney's created settings serve as both utopian ideals and mechanisms of spatial and economic exclusion.</p><p dir="ltr">EPCOT was designed as a mid-century paradise, complete with radial zoning, underground transportation networks, and a modernist planning paradigm. However, its final conversion into a theme park emphasizes the physical and economic alienation of the postmodern society. Meanwhile, The Florida Project deconstructs Disney's carefully created places by depicting Kissimmee's chaotic, neon-lit sprawl via a raw cinematic lens, revealing the huge socioeconomic differences that lurk just beyond Disney's clean image. This thesis contends that, while Disney's spaces promise utopian ideals, they ultimately serve as curated spectacles that reinforce—rather than dismantle—structural injustices in the built environment, as vividly illustrated in Sean Baker's The Florida Project (2017).</p>