The Disneyland Paris that never was - Part Seven : Hotels and Disney Village

Here is the last part of this “Disneyland Paris that never was“ series, in tribute to this wonderful park. And this one should make happy those of you who like never realised projects.

For this last article we go outside the park to have a look to what was formerly known as “Festival Disney “ - now “Disney Village” - the nightime entertainment and shopping area. On our way, let’s stop a minute. One of you once asked me if there were a big fountain project for DLP - i mean, a big one like the one in Epcot, for instance. Well, it’s true that unfortunately there is no big fountain at DLP but WDI imagineers did think about having one as you can see on the picture above.

The entrance of the WDS are up front, the Magic Kingdom is on the left and Disney Village on the right. The concept with the sorcerer’s hat was okay, but i must say the dimensions were by far too big.

This rendering show the entrance of the Disney Village. The metallic tower were done, but not the guitar or the hat theming.



More regrets, however, for this incredible restaurant concept....



And the hotels, you say? Well, here is some incredible hotels-that-never-were concepts. First I have to tell you that some of the most reknown architects in the world were asked to propose different hotel concepts. And the central theme for all the hotels was: America. Weeks later , they all came back with their own proposals: For Austrian architect Hans Hollein, Amercica mean “war”, so he proposed an hotel with the shape of an aircraft carrier (!) as you can see below.



Jean Nouvel, a famous french architect proposed an all-transparent hotel.



Architect Ron Koolhass concept was pretty modern, too.



Robert Venturi proposed another original concept, a tribute to “Fantasia”.



But one of my favorite is this unique concept by Bernard Tschumi with an inside marina.



All of these projects were not developped, and, frankly, if the central theme was “America” , the hotels that were finally built were obviously a better choice. Hope you enjoyed these Disneyland Paris "that never was" articles!


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All photos and artwork: copyright Disney