World Showcase Alternate Designs: Epcot Center's Canceled Attractions Part 45

 Epcot Center's Canceled Attractions

Spaceship Earth Across World Showcase Lagoon Epcot Disney World

World Showcase went through a lot of changes before eventually getting built as a part of opening day Epcot Center. It initially started as its own concept for a theme park separate from Epcot, but even the initial version designed for Epcot Center was very different from what we would end up seeing when the park opened.

Be sure to check out the rest of Epcot Center's Canceled Attractions here. Today we are exploring alternate designs for the World Showcase before the design for the land that is still in the park to this day.

Gran Fiesta Tour Pyramid Mexico Epcot Disney World

While the basic design of the World Showcase as a series of countries showcasing the architecture of world cultures located around a large central lagoon developed soon after the land became a part of Epcot, the exact design of how countries these would have been laid out changed multiple different times.

Originally American Adventure was supposed to be an unassuming circular building at the entrance rather than as the middle pavilion of the park. It changed when the design of the pavilion changed to require only being visible on one side to allow a forced perspective design based on the revolution period to work.


Originally though, in its place, there was supposed to be a massive fountain that was set to tower over every pavilion. It was not to be as elaborate as the Fountain of Nations, and was really set to solve the problem Disney had of how to deal with not placing any country in the central position, making them appear more important than the others. Using America as a host pavilion solved this problem and removed the need for an empty spot on the World Showcase.

Initially, there were also supposed to be significantly more countries in the World Showcase, and the size of the lagoon had to be shrunk multiple times due to a lack of willing country sponsors.

Epcot Morocco Pavilion World Showcase Disney World

The eventual plan ended up creating a perfect World Showcase, that couldn't even fill all of its slots after over three decades, but that is ok. It allows for experiencing a good number of countries without it feeling overwhelming, or being too much or a walk.

Be sure to check out the rest of this series here. Also, be sure to come back next week when we explore Epcot's original lost food festival.


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