Monstropolis is starting to look like Monstropolis. The transformation of the former Grand Avenue and Muppets Courtyard at Disney’s Hollywood Studios has moved past structural work and into the phase guests actually care about, with the first monster theming details now appearing on the facades.
Horns And Teeth Arrive
The details showing up on the buildings lean directly into the source material. Shapes resembling horns and teeth have been applied to the facades, with rows of downward-pointing triangles hanging from window trim like teeth and upward-pointing triangles reading as horns above. Aerial photographer bioreconstruct has separately documented teeth-like elements added to the quick service restaurant building within the land.
Imagineering had signalled this was coming. In a behind the scenes look at the project earlier this year, Senior Creative Director of Concept Design Scott Mallwitz described a fully realized monster city with scales, claws and horns worked into facades and finishes throughout the land.
This is the point in a theme park build where the concept art starts to become legible from the ground. Everything before it, the steel, the roofing, the utility runs, could belong to almost any project. Horns on a parapet could not.
It also tends to mark a shift in how quickly things change. Structural work moves slowly and looks the same for months at a time. Facade theming goes up in recognizable pieces, which means the visual difference between one visit and the next is about to become much more obvious to anyone walking past the walls.
Update: The Harryhausen’s Chopsticks Are Going Up
The theming is moving fast. Steel for the Harryhausen’s chopsticks has now been installed on site, per Drew Smith, giving the land its most recognizable single landmark in skeleton form.
Harryhausen’s is the upscale sushi restaurant from Monsters, Inc., named for stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen, and its exterior sign in the film is dominated by an oversized pair of chopsticks lifting a piece of sushi. Reproducing that at full scale gives the land an unmistakable visual anchor, the same job Gertie the Dinosaur does further into the park.
The restaurant is taking over the former Mama Melrose’s Ristorante Italiano, which has been progressing from a gutted interior to steel framing since early June. Steel going in for the chopsticks also suggests they are structural rather than decorative signage bolted on at the end, which is consistent with the scale the concept art implied.
The Theater And A Vanishing Gateway
Work is also progressing on the theater building inside Monstropolis, the former MuppetVision 3D theater that Disney has confirmed will reopen as The Glob. Aerial photos taken through gaps in the scaffolding show beams in place for what appears to be the structure’s marquee, another element that will read clearly to guests once the walls come down, while the central clock tower has been picking up new faux brickwork and paint.
One detail is going the other direction. Four tall concrete columns had been cast for what observers understood to be the gateway into the city, and those columns have since been trimmed down or removed entirely. They are no longer visible above the construction fence. Whether that reflects a design change, a staging decision or simply a different construction sequence than expected is not clear, and Disney has not commented on it.
That kind of reversal is worth noting without over-reading. Elements get cast, cut and recast during theme park construction for reasons that rarely make it into a public explanation, and a removed column is not by itself evidence of a scaled-back plan. Every account of the change so far has come from photographers working outside the walls rather than from the company.
Monstropolis is one of several major projects reshaping Walt Disney World at once, alongside Piston Peak National Park and Disney Villains Land at Magic Kingdom, Tropical Americas at Animal Kingdom and the Disney Lakeshore Lodge resort. At Magic Kingdom, Piston Peak’s utility work has already gone underground. Disney has not announced an opening date for Monstropolis. Additional photos of the facade details are available at Chip and Company.
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