“Another credible subject is the historical continuum, and the relation between the past and the present. This has led to an outbreak of parody, nostalgia, and pastiche... but has also resulted in anamnesis, or suggested recollection.” (Jencks 286)
Since this article focuses mainly on architecture and how the elements of postmodernism apply to that medium, this quote in particular turned my mind to the Disney theme parks. In a way, anamnesis is the one of the most important elements that the Disney parks are designed around. For example, let’s take a look at Disneyland’s Main Street USA. Walt Disney and his team of designers based Main Street on his childhood memories of his hometown, Marceline, Missouri. However, there aren’t any specific design details on Main Street that would make a visitor think of turn-of-the-century Missouri. Instead, Main Street is designed around the idea of an early 1900s American town, and the shared nostalgia, the “suggested recollection,” many of Disneyland’s early visitors would have for that idea. Almost sixty years later, the idea of Main Street remains deeply ingrained in our cultural consciousness, largely thanks to the lasting cultural impact Disneyland and Disney’s other parks have had. Not every Disneyland visitor is aware of Main Street’s inspiration, but they don’t need to be, because the details and the architecture tells the story. That’s the case in all of Disney’s theme park design. Most visitors aren’t aware of the design inspiration and intricate backstories of theme park environments, but Disney’s best details allow them to “not fully comprehend [the story] of which the[re] may be fragments, but [they are] nevertheless invited to make a guess as to their significance” (Jencks 286).
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