A note from Jen Funderburk: I came across an old copy of ORLANDO-LAND magazine from 1980 in a pile of severely water damaged memorabilia that was in no condition to keep or sell. As I was tearing out pages from the moldy, wrinkled magazine to start a morning fire, I came across this almost 30 page article on the planning of EPCOT Center at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. I cannot believe it was almost burnt, especially after finding it was not available online. I have excitedly scanned all photos and text to share with you. This is the final part of a multi part series. Read the entire series.

Inside EPCOT

By Edward L. Prizer

Originally published in the June 1980 issue of ORLANDO-LAND Magazine

Image 36-1.png — Inside EPCOT

In the following article, an ORLANDO-LAND reporter describes a rare visit to the realm of the Imagineers and the marvels of ingenuity that are going on there. It is perhaps the most detailed account of the wonders of EPCOT Center ever published.

Nuts and bolts, bricks and mortar

You may be wondering by now how all these flights of imagination soaring from the minds of visionary artists could ever be transformed into the mammoth showplace that they call EPCOT Center. It is one thing to give free reign to far-out dreams and even depict them in sketches and models. But the task of manufacturing hundreds of thousands of components and putting them together in actual buildings seems almost beyond the range of human power.

Yet it is getting done. And one man is largely responsible for seeing that it gets done right-with the involvement of 265 staff engineers and designers, a construction management firm and an endless list of contractors and subcontractors and suppliers and manufacturing firms.

He is John Zovich, vice president of engineering. You would know he was a construction man any place. He's tanned, muscular, forceful. A no-ifs-ands-buts man, positive and direct in speech.

John Zovich is the man who puts all the pieces together from designs created by the Imagineers. He oversees projects ranging from construction of a prototype incinerator to fabrication of seats for the ride in the Transportation Pavilion.

As soon as I sat down opposite him at his desk, I asked:

“What do you really do?” He did not hesitate.

“Engineering,” he said, “is taking creative ideas and melding them into brick and mortar, computer systems and hardware, facilities, shows and rides. Real things. It is putting them in a form that allows someone to bid them and build them. It is transforming ideas into documents and specifications."

Disney has engaged the Tishman Construction Corp. to act as construction manager. They place the separate projects out for bid. Only firms approved by Disney can enter bids, and Disney people are involved all the way in the awarding of contracts.

“We have a field staff of WED engineering people who act as liaison between the design office and the construction manager to assure that what we ask for we get,” John Zovich said. “Everyone has to be responsive to the needs of the program. We staff projects with people who know the basic design. They're able to make decisions in the field.”

The first concerns of the engineering department were site preparation and installation of utilities. I have described the massive job of earthmoving that is going on right now.

The Reedy Creek Improvement District-a quasi-governmental unit at Walt Disney World-contracted with WED to design the utility setup. Once it's in, the Reedy Creek Utility Co. will operate it.

“Site preparation is 60 per cent complete,” John said. “The primary utilities are in. Contracts will be let by June for Spaceship Earth, the entrance complex, monorail station and Land Pavilion."

Ground will be broken in June for the Transportation and Energy pavilions, for which contracts have already been let.

"We're deeply involved in the early stages of Century 3 and Imagination,” he said. "They're not in working drawings yet. Communicore is still in design development. We have let the contract for the monorail beamway (track). By June we will have let the bid for on-site utility distribution. There'll be a central energy plant that provides hot water, chilled water and compressed air.”

He said a series of releases would be forthcoming on the World Showcase pavilions, where work will go on simultaneously with construction in Future World. They'll be tackled two at a time, starting with Canada and working counterclockwise, with the exception of Morocco, which will be started later.

The vacuum trash-gathering system installed at Walt Disney World will not be used at EPCOT. Instead, waste will be picked up by trucks and transported to a central solid waste compaction station. From there it will be hauled to an innovative pyrolysis (incineration) plant.

“This is a pilot plant that we're developing under the Department of Energy,” John said. “It will provide data for a plant at Idaho Falls where waste from nuclear facilities will be burned.”

The incinerator will operate at 3,500, so hot it will burn anything. Gases are continuously drawn off from the top and reinjected at the bottom to feed the fire. Either natural gas or diesel oil can be used to start the process. Once it's going, it runs 24 hours a day.

"We've had to contract to obtain waste from Orange County so we'll have enough to keep the plant running 24 hours,” John said.

Another of the fascinating new technologies that John Zovich and his team will put into use is a guidance system designed by GM, for vehicles in the Energy Pavilion. They can move about, negotiate curves and reposition themselves with out a driver or any attachments to objects around them. This is accomplished by sensors that respond to wires in the floors. The vehicles charge their batteries by induction at specified points without any electrical connections. The power comes from the photovoltaic cells on the roof.

“Doing that shows that we are really on the threshold of what our whole business is all about,” John said.

*Fabrication of seats (below) for the ride in the Transportation Pavilion. (Copyright Walt Disney Productions)*

I was beginning to realize by this time that John Zovich's part of the job was really a whole story within itself, one I hoped I would come back to more than once before the project was complete. But now I had only a few minutes remaining, just long enough to scoot over to the MAPO building next door.

MAPO stands for Mary Poppins. It was set up to create special devices needed in that movie, and it has been doing

the same thing ever since for other shows and projects. Here is where the Audio-Animatronics figures, among other things, are put together and wired for operation.

It was just like walking into Frankenstein's laboratory. Everywhere I looked stood plastic-clad robots brazenly displaying their mechanical innards. One was sea ted in a bright red antique car holding his head in his hand. I wondered if he was suffering from too much voltage the night before.

Each of the figures has a set of controls underneath. Electrical impulses activate air hoses which in turn activate the moving parts.

Among the robots I recognized some of my old friends, the musical vegetables, from the Kitchen Kabaret show. In this place, anything can be made to perform. And anything can be made to look real.

By some process they've developed a way to make eyes that you'd swear are staring at you. If the figure is an animal, they can arrange for a coat of fur that you can't distinguish from the real thing. And in one room they apply paint to the vinyl face masks that produces a disturbingly human flesh tone.

Just one more waystop in the route ideas take here toward ultimate reality. For us, that reality is EPCOT Center on Oct. 1, 1982.

See you there.

One of the last steps before shows are assembled for the EPCOT pavilions is programming of Audio-Animatronics characters. Console above has knobs to adjust movements of limbs and face. (Copyright Walt Disney Productions)

Orlando Architects Part Of Epcot Team

The legend of the Imagineers has become so all-encompassing that few people realize scores of outside firms are also involved in creating EPCOT Center. Two Orlando architectural firms are among them.

Schweizer Associates is doing the architectural work on the Mexican Pavilion. Helman, Hurley, Charvat, Peacock is working on the American Adventure structure.

Both are, in effect, a part of the WED team. Which is quite a feather-in-the-hat for two small-city organizations. And an experience the likes of which neither has gone through before.

As you might expect, doing it the Disney way is nothing like the way an architectural firm normally handles a job.

Mark Schweizer's description of his firm's involvement reveals what it means to work for Disney.

In the first place, Schweizer Associates did not bid on a specific job.

"We'd heard that Disney hoped to involve local people," Mr. Schweizer told me. ''We saw no reason why we shouldn't be one of those firms. We made it a marketing objective in November 1978."

Nils Schweizer, Mark's brother, and Richard Zipperly made trips to California to talk with the Disney people. The following spring, they produced a brochure explaining what their firm was and its way of doing things.

"They came to our office to interview us," Mr. Schweizer said. "We conveyed our design consciousness and feeling for the project.'

Only after Disney was sold on the firm did they assign a project to the Schweizer organization.

It was the Mexican Pavilion.

"Our job was to take concepts developed by Disney and project them into a building," Mr. Schweizer said. "We were to develop the details to construct it efficiently, identify the costs and create contract documents (for subcontractors) that are priced with accuracy.

“We got a concept set of documents. Schematics. Drawings. They set the size, located the mechanical equipment. We spent a whole month devouring the documents. We worked on plans from March 1 to Oct. 1.".

Two other Florida firms were also brought in as consultants on the pavilion: Tilden, Denson & Lobnitz of Orlando and Bliss & Nyitray of Miami.

The give-and-take with WED was constant.

“We've had to remain exceedingly flexible," Mr. Schweizer said. “We have to receive changes and put them into the stream without interrupting the flow. Our work is continually evaluated by WED.

“We're now going back and changing the visual appearance. We've been responsive to changes. Our job is not to disagree, it's to make it work. From the design standpoint, we consider them the experts. In this case we have to assist in evaluation of the design. We're a member of a team.'

Mr. Schweizer has obviously been impressed with the meticulousness of the Disney approach. For example:

"We recommended that a step in the roof of the structure be eliminated. We made sketches and gave them to the WED people. They took them back and built an actual model and put it in the total setting. Only then was judgment passed. WED's attentiveness to that kind of detail makes you more aware of their objectives."

The pavilion that Schweizer has created contains two buildings. One is a small cantina--a fast food operation-on the edge of the lagoon in front of the main building.

The major structure is entered through a replica of a May an temple.

"It's not really an authentic replica," Mr. Schweizer said. "It's symbolic. It has the feel and flavor of Mexican antiquity."

Visitors will walk in to the building through a central area containing exhibits. Beyond, they come to a traditional Mexican park, the kind found in the center of most Mexican towns. Around it will be shops and a restaurant.

“The central attraction is a boat ride," Mr. Schweizer said. "It takes you from ancient times up to the present. It's a cultural experience. WED does the show. We light it for them."

One major problem is the difference in clima te between Mexico (dry) and Florida (wet).

''We're creating a project which has every appearance of a Central Mexican cantina. But it has to survive the elements here. We need to solve how best to do it and not have it leak.

"In the last three to four years we've been blessed with some of the most unique new materials. They give us a capability we wouldn't have had five years ago. We use lots of fibreglas, some natural materials, some simulated materials. Cobblestones are not the greatest thing for 50,000 people to walk over so we work with materials that are better."

Nils Schweizer is serving as design specialist, a position created for this project.

"It's fraught with nuances and interpretations not gained by verbal communication. It has to be in tuitive. The feel of it."

Hank Wolf has the more customary role of project designer.

At the outset, Schweizer submitted 200 questions to Disney "to generate discussion, give us information.

Mark Schweizer said:

"We're continually trying to be aware of their need, what they want us to do. Generally, on other projects, we do what we want to do ourselves.

“In this case our objective is to see that WED is happy with whatever we do. Our confidence is in their designers. They have indicated a reliance upon our understanding of the construction industry, of materials. When we see we have a problem, it's our responsibility to re-evaluate. If it's the right thing to do, we find a way to do it.

"If we felt we were an outside firm, we would ultimately have difficulty dealing with the problems. Essentially, we are in WED, an expansion of their team.'

Mr. Schweizer said the team concept in his firm, established for many years, helped to fit them to their kind of working relationship.

Schweizer Associates is jointly owned by employee-stockholders. "We function jointly to solve problems that affect us all. Minority stockholders make us much more effective. We do more work in less time because we work together. We could accomplish anything."

The firm now has 29 people, including 11 architects and 3 engineers. They expect to enjoy continuing growth, hopefully in part through relationship with Disney.

“It's a super relationship," Mr. Schweizer said. "We'd like to continue it for the next 30 years."