L. Frank Baum and Prop Vignettes.

I was very surprised to learn that the author of the famed Oz books, L. Frank Baum, began his career in theatrical production and retail marketing. The same year that he published The Wonderful World of Oz, 1900, Baum wrote The Art of Decorating Dry Goods Windows and Interiors. According to Woody Register (see my last post on his Fred Thompson biopic) it was “the first book on the subject, and one widely valued among urban retailers.”

A successful window display is a stage on which objects tell some legible story.” — L. Frank Baum

At first, this seems trivial—a man leaves the worlds of entertainment and commerce to write children’s books. Yet stage production, retail decor and fantasy narratives all intersect at a versatile device in the thematic designer’s toolbox—something I’ve been calling prop vignettes. I’m choosing to use the term vignette in the literary sense, as in brief scene centered around one moment.

According to William R. Leach in his Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture, Baum seems to have been the first to write about the appeal of window displays and their usefulness in drawing consumers into retail spaces. He essentially invented something we take for granted today (especially at Christmas time)—the department store window diorama.

The fact that Baum was a natural-born storyteller says much about his ability to design and decorate consumer spaces. As Woody Register put it, “the integration of his imagination into the urban marketplace and the new art of displaying goods cannot be separated from his literary fairy tales.”

As I have come to define them, prop vignettes are like theatrical stage sets in miniature, and they are used to establish “soft” narrative (atmospheric storytelling). Usually consisting of a tightly arranged composition of static elements, prop vignettes literally ‘set the stage’ for thematic environments.

They establish mood and convey meaning at a level of detail that architecture alone cannot—in this regard they belong more to the tradition of interior design.

A classic example is the stack of barrels framed by a ladder or the mining equipment, ore cars and rusted gears and metalwork commonly found at venues in the wild west theme.

The examples pictured here are all from my recent trip to Disneyland Paris, and represent typical such displays.

The two most common settings for prop vignettes are in themed restaurants and in the cues of amusement park attractions, particularly those designed by Disney. This is actually quite interesting—both areas entail substantial waiting at times.

This leads me to believe that designers actively employ them to give guests and consumers something to look at while they are idle; the atmospheric qualities of prop vignettes are best admired at length. More on this later, but suffice to say that this design technique is instrumental in developing successful thematic environments.

Fred Thompson and the Birth of “Amusement Architecture.”

I’ve just finished Woody Register’s The Kid of Coney Island, an excellent historical biopic of Fred Thompson, the visionary behind Luna Park. Opening at Coney Island in 1903, Thompson’s brainchild was arguably the first twentieth century american thematic environment. I discovered in Register’s incredible read that Thompson actually coined the term “Amusement Architecture” as the title of an article he wrote for Architectural Review 16 in July, 1909.

I was able to find the entire piece at archive.org, in which Thompson admonishes ‘traditional schooled architecture’ and makes the case that those without formal training are better suited to designing thematic spaces. “The schemes of such a man must be fantastical, even sometimes to an extreme,” he wrote, “for his is more the undertaking of an artist with imagination than of a craftsman whose efficiency is restricted by his subservience to a triangle and a t-square” (emphasis is mine).

The extent of Thompson’s architectural education was off-an-on again work in his teens at his uncle’s firm in Nashville, Tennessee. He never mastered formal skills, and later tried a year of illustration classes at the Cincinnati Art Academy, but grew restless and left. He always referred to himself as a “showman” or an entertainer—never an artist or an architect—yet a generation before Walt Disney, he began the tradition of illustrators and designers developing spaces and thus challenging the primacy of the architect.

“Theatrically speaking, architecture is nothing more nor less than scenery,” Thompson declared to his readers (emphasis mine). He scolded “carefully trained architects who endeavor to make triangles and t-squares do the work of brains and imagination” for not being able to conceptualize entertainment venues for the consuming public. “Straight lines are as hard and serious as baccalaureate sermons…buildings can laugh quite as loudly as human beings…and a beautiful but excited skyline is more important in an exposition [than formality].”

The groundwork for departing from architectural formalism was laid by Fred Thompson at Luna Park. His unwillingness to confine his work to the “triangle and t-square” and his emphasis on an imaginative, illustrative approach to conceptualizing environments is the cornerstone of thematic design as it is now practiced. Thompson’s methodology is the missing link between the Tivoli Gardens and World’s Fairs of the nineteenth century (the latter of which Thompson won an award for architectural design) and the work of the Disney organization, which injected the experience and personnel of Hollywood movie magic—the language of cinematics.

A Question of Criteria.

I just picked up a new read, The Themed Space: Locating Culture, Nation, and Self. The volume is collection of essays by scholars of a variety of backgrounds from around the world, edited by Scott A. Lukas of Lake Tahoe College. Most of the content comes from the social sciences, and there is a solid glossary of terms used throughout the book. Reading it has raised an important issue for this project—given the wide body of work on theming from a sociological / anthropological perspective, how will the vocabulary and criteria differ from a design-centric discussion of theming?

For example, someone in the social sciences might consider particular 'themes' that I would dismiss, or group spaces in with thematic environments that I reason—from a design perspective—don't really belong. A good example of this is what sociologist Mark Gottdiener at University of Buffalo calls "representing the unrepresentable." In his seminal book, The Theming of America, Gottdiener outlines several archetypal themes—those that occur over and over again in our culture, such as the "Wild West" or "Tropical Paradise." Along with these he counts abstract spaces that tell a story not as a literal narrative, but more as a metaphor; among his examples are Maya Lin's Vietnam Wall and the Jewish Museum Berlin. By the standards Gottdiener uses as a sociologist, both places do convey themes—mourning, loss, redemption, remembrance, etc. Yet I don't consider either site to be a thematic environment, or to be an example of thematic design.

As I get deeper and deeper into my criteria and terminology for the design language of theming, I think it is quite important to make these distinctions. Theming is obviously thought of in a much broader sense in the social sciences, and it is by no means a universally described phenomenon. What constitutes a theme and a thematic environment is bound to vary widely—even between creative professionals. An architect, an environmental graphics designer, and an urban planner may not be able to agree on what is and is not theming. One of the goals of this thesis is to clarify thematic design as a movement with its own language, and provide designers with a framework for identifying, evaluating, and appreciating theming.

The Kid of Coney Island.

I just picked up a new read—The Kid of Coney Island: Fred Thompson and the Rise of American Amusements by Woody Register. It's a historical biopic that tells the story of a man who reinvented the amusement industry at New York's Coney Island during the turn of the century. Although a generation before Walt Disney, Thompson shares much in common with his desire for a holistic experience. Luna Park, which Thompson (along with Elmer "Skip" Dundy) designed, is often referred to as "Disneyland before Disney" and there's certainly reason for this—Luna Park may well represent the first American thematic environment of the twentieth century.

Thompson was obsessed with vernacular architecture as a means to transport his audiences to another time and place. Luna Park featured some of the first architectural collages that later became popular at theme parks from Japan to Dubai (and let's not forget Epcot's World Showcase.) Thompson designed two popular attractions for Luna Park based on the writings of Jules Verne, A Trip to the Moon and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Sound familiar? In fact, both tales were later given their own interpretation at Disney Parks. Walt Disney World's 20,000 Leagues Submarine Ride ran from 1971 to 1994, and was themed based on the art direction of Harper Goff for Disney's 1994 live action adaptation of the novel. An entire land at Tokyo DisneySea is based on the writings of Jules Verne, with attractions based on both Journey to the Center of the Earth and 20,000 Leagues. over at disneyland paris, space mountain was envisioned as a trip from the earth to the moon.

As I read on about Thompson I'll have more to say about his contribution to the history of theming. While most of Coney Island's attraction areas over the years were not themed, it's clear that Thompson's Luna Park was a milestone in thematic design, sort of between Tivoli Gardens and Disneyland.

Visceral Reality.

I've been thinking a lot lately about Jon Jerde and his renowned global architecture firm, The Jerde Partnership. If you're not familiar with these folks, they've designed many thematic environments, from Horton Plaza and Universal CityWalk in southern California, to the Fremont Street Experience and the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. The guy's done work all over the country, and worldwide. Jerde's portfolio extends well beyond entertainment projects. Yet it is his work in this area and his philosophy with regards to the process of 'placemaking' that have distinguished the partnership in the architectural community. On my vector between pure simulation and pure brand, Jerde stands smack in the middle—where theming and brandscape overlap.

Jon Jerde describes his firm's approach in the introduction to The Jerde Partnership International: Visceral Reality. Jerde contends that modernism alienated us from our relationship with the spaces we create and inhabit. Before industrialization, mass production, and the modernist movement, people had a more intimate connection to their man-made environments. "The cohesive, experiential fabric of the older order had been destroyed...architectural works that have in the past contributed to an isolated, combative world are no longer viable. Our new age requires inclusivity and connectivity as design premises." The mission of the Jerde Partnership is focused not on the perfection of the object, but on the "transformation of the subject," to quote Anna Klingmann.

"We are instead dedicated to the experiential over the ideological, driven by intuition rather than cognition" Jerde states. "We put people in a popular and collective environment in which they can be most truly and happily alive."

Jon Jerde's place in THEMERICA™ is a middle ground between the intensely scripted simulations of the Disney parks, and the empty logo-neering of Niketown. Acknowledging that the market has been a traditional place of community gathering ever since the rise of townships and cities, he champions retail spaces "designed for citizens, not just consumers."

Spectacle. Theming as Backlash.

I read some interesting quotes in Spectacle by Bruce Mau and David Rockwell recently. Spectacle is the latest offering in lush volumes from the design mind of Bruce Mau—a rich photographic journey through a variety of celebrations, festivals and amusements from around the globe. I took particular interest in the chapter on Las Vegas, and an interview with cultural critic Dave Hickey entitled "real fakery." Hickey is surprised that the visual excess of Las Vegas—what he calls the "great American backlash"—is not widely admired and respected outside of Sin City. "A great many Americans are addicted to solemnity" he says. "I think the Disney thing works and I think Vegas works because they fulfill a basic human need. They wouldn't be working so well if they didn't...the sheer puritanical ugliness amidst which Americans dwell so happily...I've never been able to figure it out."

This echoes the sentiments of famed architect Robert Venturi, who observed once that "Disney is nearer to what people really want than anything architects have ever given them."

The Dave Hickey interview really got me thinking about theming as backlash. did modernism—with its stolid insistence on function and efficiency—deprive us of the sugar? Of the good stuff? Have we been on this architectural diet for so long, that Walt Disney World and Las Vegas and the like are a metaphor for ordering seconds at desert time? Maybe so.

Brandscapes.

As part of my duties on the board of AIGA San Francisco, I was involved with the production of Compostmodern 08, a sustainability conference put on by AIGA and my graduate program director Phil Hamlett at the Center for Sustainable Design on January 19th. During the day's events, in which I coordinated A/V speaker presentations, I saw Jacinta McCann, architect with edaw, give a talk about the firm's latest work around the world. This talk prompted my purchase of Brandscapes: Architecture in the Experience Economy by Anna Klingmann at the Compostmodern bookstore run by Stacy's of San Francisco. Brandscapes is an incredibly valuable work. While researching THEMERICA™, one of my more formidable tasks has been to define what I term 'theming' in relation to other forms of commercial and entertainment architecture. Where does branding end and theming begin? Where do they intersect? What is the design criteria? Klingmann is a scholar who is interested in how architecture has evolved from modernism at the height of the twentieth century, to post-modernism and beyond at the dawn of the 21st. She discusses commercial spaces in the context of the 'experience economy'—the current state of the service sector that is fundamentally about not what the consumer buys, but how they feel.

Klingmann's central contention—boiled down—is that architecture has evolved from the modernist ideal, "the perfection of the object" to "the transformation of the subject." I had hinted at this kind of development in my original thesis proposal, but I did not have the language to flesh it out in my head, exactly. Reading Brandscapes—the name Klingmann gives to this new form of architecture—has set my thinking in a particular direction now.

I am coming to see thematic environments and branded spaces as two distinct spheres that overlap. A vector runs between two extremes; on the far end of the thematic spectrum is pure simulation; a replica of a historical and/or cultural reference. The narrative elements in such an extreme are completely external. On the far end of the branded spaces is pure brand. The narrative is completely internal (what Alan Bryman calls "self-reflexive theming") and refers only to the iconography of the brand. This gradient is what divides the Ghost Town of Knott's Berry Farm or the jungles of Rain Forest Cafe from the Niketowns and McDonald's of the world. everything else, from works of the Jon Jerde Partnership such as Universal CityWalk and Horton Plaza, lies in between somewhere.

The Unreal America.

So, last week I attended AIGA's Studio Tour for Chronicle Books here in San Francisco. Their new office building, which they've been in for several months now, was incredible. I met many creative professionals that night, including one Brett MacFadden, Senior Designer. Brett has worked with Academy of Art MFA students as a directed study advisor before, so it was great to finally meet him. Anyways, Mr. MacFadden took an interest in my topic during the course of our conversation, and recommended a book to me — The Unreal America: Architecture and Illusion by Ada Louise Huxtable. I flipped through the book ever so briefly after it arrived from amazon.com, and it's a goldmine. Covering issues like historical representation through vernacular architecture and structural simulacrum (real fake versus fake fake), Huxtable's book has provided a very thorough analysis of some of the issues that THEMERICA™ will touch upon. I will be sure to add this author to the list of scholars and professionals I plan on interviewing later on in the project.

Current Reading in the Social Sciences.

It's been nearly three weeks since the last post. I've been busy reading and annotating, along with making plans for the rest of the content on this site. Also booking travel. Currently, I am knee-deep in the second edition (2001) of Mark Gottdiener's The Theming of America. I had read the first edition of this excellent book (1998), which tackles theming from a sociological perspective, while doing preliminary research on Disneyland last fall for my Visual Communications class. The second edition is more refined and includes updates as to the development of Las Vegas. Gottdiener is concerned with the transition from traditional theming in classical cultures, to the decline of symbolic form during the rise of industrial capitalism, to the resurgence of theming as means to solve the realization of capital. He is interested also in twentieth century theming as essentially a knee-jerk reaction to modernism in architecture and urban planning, in which traditional symbols were stripped away for efficiency and pure function before form. Gottdiener calls this new postmodern theming the "vengeful return" of the primacy of the symbolism and sign value.

Also on the nightstand is Dream Worlds: Architecture and Entertainment, a German book by journalist and design instructor Oliver Herwig. This text deals with theming only in an adjunct sense; Herwig traces architectural forms in entertainment venues (what he and others have called "architainment") throughout Western history. Thematic design is but a small part of his sampling, yet many of the sites visited are primary examples.

I recently finished The Disneyization of Society by Alan Bryman. This tremendously insightful read shed light on many aspects of theming I had not considered directly. Building on George Ritzer's original classic The McDonaldization of Society, as well as Mark Gottdiener's history and classifications of theming, Bryman mentions that the current critique of disney revolves around the company's cultural exports. He notes that this reductionist sanitizing of source material, stories and characters is often called Disneyfication. The author then argues that the global spread of the processes by which Disney manages and operates their theme parks have been the company's true lasting impact. Bryman distinguishes his critique by calling it Disneyization. Theming is but one of the characteristics he describes.

The American Amusement Park by Dale Samuelson with Wendy Yegoiants was a text I read a few weeks back, and it gives a good general outline of the development of amusement venues, fairs, expositions and finally theme parks. Something interesting I picked up from this was that many original coney island parks—all of which were gone by the end of World War II—utilized very early postmodern theming.

What I have found is that most of my reading has been in the social sciences, where theming has been discussed meaningfully and extensively. This information, put into proper context, will allow me to conduct my field research into the visual vocabulary of theming as a design language and movement.