Originally Posted By jonvn If it never was, why would it be victorian? I'm sure it will ok, it's just that style seems to be used a lot. You know, art deco would be a nice style for them to use. But I guess that is what is meant by 1920s LA. That will probably all be art deco.
Originally Posted By spacejockey Is the Coranado Hotel in San Diego victorian? Maybe that was the inspiration.
Originally Posted By BlueOhanaTerror ^^^Not a bad look. I'm also thinking the design fallback seems to be Victorian often enough... But I don't know what would work as a compelling, visually distinct alternative. Victorian filligree looks great up close and from a distance it reads immediately. You can do colorful things with it, and it'll light up beautifully at night. I'm just glad they're moving away from a contemporary look, because the contemporary look they went with, simply looks cheap and under-finished.
Originally Posted By Sweeper The piers were Victorian with many elements as a Victorian interpretations of other styles. Victorian style seems to say Disney many times.
Originally Posted By Skellington88 Yea Victorian is the iconic Disney look that you can see in such famous disney locales such as Mainstreet U.S.A., The Grand Floridian, etc.
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt "The piers were Victorian with many elements as a Victorian interpretations of other styles." They were? Nothing I've seen of California amusement piers looks even romotely Victorian. Wasn't their heyday long after the Victorian era ended?
Originally Posted By jonvn Yes, the heyday would be the 1920s. That's why I sort of thought art deco or art nouveau would be a more interesting style. But I think they are probably going to do that in the hollywood area. Again, my guesswork. And actually, there are all kinds of victorian styles. Mostly, they are going with the Queen Anne style. There are a number of others. But that is the most ornate of them.
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy << Yea Victorian is the iconic Disney look, blah, blah, blah . . . >> This is why narrow-minded Disney fanboys should not be designing theme parks. You get stuck in this idea of what a Disney park should look like -- "It must be Victorian!, there must be a massive display of Audio-Animatronics!, the ride system must be an Omnimover!" The great thing about Disney parks is the broad variety in attractions, themes, rides systems, and experiences. Anytime we revert back to the "iconic Disney experience" we end up rehashing something that has already been done before. You can only create so many versions of the same thing before it just becomes stale. Thankfully, Imagineering has been very willing to come up with offerings that aren't just in the cookie cutter variety of things. When you keep offering the same thing over and over again, people grow tired of it. That's what happened in EPCOT with all of the Future World attractions that were essentially the same experience with different window dressing.
Originally Posted By Britain While art deco was the quintessential design of the 1920's, it was not widely distributed yet. Most of the world was still living in surroundings from the 1880-1910's. Not everyone had an art deco radio, an art deco car, or an art deco skyscraper. 1930's saw deco go mass produced (while Bauhaus became the new cutting edge style). And entertainment architecture in the 1920's (that found in amusement parks and movie theaters) didn't have aspirations to be cutting edge. Overall, their architecture was a mix of victorian and "fantasy" which was usually a rather vaudevillian variation on Islamic / Egyptian / Oriental styles.
Originally Posted By BlueOhanaTerror >>>That's why I sort of thought art deco or art nouveau would be a more interesting style. But I think they are probably going to do that in the hollywood area.<<< The area around Avalon Cove looks more art nouveau to me. It would be fun to extend THAT look throughout. Maybe it's too (Pinocchio) PLEASURE ISLAND, though.
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt Here is a link to some photos of the Pike in Long Beach. This place exhibited a look typical of what I think a California beachfront pleasure pier would have looked like. It's certainly not a Victorian look. <a href="http://longbeachheritagemuseum.com/pikepix.html" target="_blank">http://longbeachheritagemuseum .com/pikepix.html</a>
Originally Posted By Dznygrl ^^^So in other words, UGLY! If the choice is between that and stretching the truth a little and going Victorian, I'll choose Victorian!
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt But it does not have to be ugly. What they have now is already an idyllic point of view - it is evocative of these sorts of places in a very Disney way. What it needs is some creative embellishing and a bit more detail. In this context, Victorian as an overall theme seems out of place and rather generic in my opinion.
Originally Posted By Sweeper Victorian can mean any style form about 1840-1900. Then many people copied those styles even after that. Here's a postcard from the LB Pike in 1920. <a href="http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/ca/losangeles/postcards/longbeach/bevbh.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgen web/ca/losangeles/postcards/longbeach/bevbh.jpg</a> And then there are the hotels connected to those piers like <a href="http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/ca/losangeles/postcards/hotred.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgen web/ca/losangeles/postcards/hotred.jpg</a> Interestingly, Main Street represents a town that never really existed in that form so is it such a big stretch to have PP be a pier that never really existed in that exact style?
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA Exactly Hans. It's like looking at a turn-of-the-20th-century small town and saying 'oooh, that's ugly!' Main Street U.S.A. is a stylized version of a turn of the century town. So would Paradise Pier -- it just requires some creative design.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA Cool pictures, Sweeper. Those hotels from Redondo Beach look very much like the Grand Floridian.
Originally Posted By pwrof3 Man, I wish Long Beach still had The Pike. (Yes, I know they built a new shopping mall called the Pike, but it SUCKS) I grew up in Long Beach in the 1980s and would have loved to have spent my childhood there... Now Long Beach is nothing but an ugly shipyard.
