The centerpiece of the park won't be the traditional basic "hub," as found in varying sizes in the five other Magic Kingdom/Disneyland parks: Anaheim, Orlando, Tokyo, Paris, and Hong Kong. The Shanghai hub will be an 11-acre "Gardens of Imagination."
Disney tonight released more detail about one of the gardens in this area: the Garden of the 12 Friends, a grove of peach trees with tile mosaic murals of various Disney and Pixar characters depicting the 12 Chinese Zodiac characters. (Remy gets the first one, for the Year of the Rat, of course.)
When we talked with theme park designer Dave Cobb last summer, he discussed the challenges of adapting Western theme park designs for a Chinese audience. The 11-acre Gardens of Imagination will provide plenty of space for multiple generations of families who visit together to sit and take photos in a beautiful environment filled with a blend of Chinese culture and Disney whimsy. It's a big change from the stripped-down Anaheim clone that Disney built in Hong Kong to lukewarm reviews and attendance, before the company responded with a massive investment to expand the park that ultimately resulted in Mystic Manor, a wildly popular new ride filled with cultural touch points for Chinese families.
Disney appears to have learned its lesson and is responding with an original design that promises to better reflect the desires of the Chinese audience. We will see how well Shanghai Disneyland accomplishes that goal when it opens in late 2015.
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It would seem to be worthwhile reminding everyone about the centerpiece of the gardens and how different it will be from previous Disney castles.