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With reason, Walter Elias Disney (1903-1966) has been variously described as an artisan, an artist, an entertainer, a manager, a strategist, an entrepreneur, finally “a visionary planner.”* Equally important but seldom acknowledged is Disney the designer. By surveying the body of work in which the design element was paramount for his entrepreneurial purposes-his animation studios, Disneyland. the California Institute of the Arts, and the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT), we can trace not only the Californian elements in Disney as designer but also the success of Disney the designer in imparting his projects worldwide through the kind of “experience economy” he helped initiate.

In 1923, after failing to sustain animation companies in Kansas City, Walt Disney arrived in Hollywood to try out his prospects and became instantly enthralled by the concrete reality of its studio cities, spending as much time as he could in the original studio lot at Universal City, as well as Paramount and Vitigraph. This experience would help shape his approach to design.

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