The Monsanto House of the Future was an attraction at

Disneyland Disneyland is a theme park in Anaheim, California. Opened in 1955, it was the first theme park opened by The Walt Disney Company and the only one designed and constructed under the direct supervision of Walt Disney. Disney initially envisio ...

Tomorrowland Tomorrowland is one of the many themed lands featured at all of the Magic Kingdom styled Disney theme parks around the world owned or licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Each version of the land is different and features numerous attractions t ...

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California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, USA, from 1957 to 1967. It offered a tour of a futuristic home, and was intended to demonstrate the versatility of modern plastics.

History

Sponsored by

Monsanto Company The Monsanto Company () was an American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation founded in 1901 and headquartered in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Monsanto's best known product is Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide, developed i ...

, the House of the Future was made possible by Monsanto, the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...

(MIT), and

Walt Disney Imagineering Walt Disney Imagineering Research & Development, Inc., commonly referred to as Imagineering, is the research and development arm of The Walt Disney Company, responsible for the creation, design, and construction of Disney theme parks and attra ...

. With this project, Monsanto wanted to demonstrate plastic's versatility as a high-quality, engineered material. The design team for this innovative structure included MIT architecture faculty Richard Hamilton and Marvin Goody (founders of Goody Clancy) and MIT civil engineering faculty Albert G. H. Dietz, Frank J. Heger, Jr. (a founder of Simpson Gumpertz & Heger) and Frederick J. McGarry. The MIT faculty worked with the Engineering Department of Monsanto's Plastics Division, including R. P. Whittier and M. F. Gigliotti. The house, featuring four symmetric wings cantilevered off a central core, was fabricated with glass-reinforced plastics. The attraction offered a tour of a home of the future, featuring household appliances such as

microwave oven A microwave oven (commonly referred to as a microwave) is an electric oven that heats and cooks food by exposing it to electromagnetic radiation in the microwave frequency range. This induces polar molecules in the food to rotate and produce ...

s, which eventually became commonplace. The house saw over 435,000 visitors within the first six weeks of opening, and ultimately saw over 20 million visitors before being closed. The house closed in 1967. The building was so sturdy that when demolition crews failed to demolish the house using wrecking balls, torches, chainsaws, and jackhammers, it was ultimately demolished using choker chains to crush it into smaller parts. The plastic structure was so strong that the half-inch steel bolts used to mount it to its foundation broke before the structure itself did. The reinforced concrete foundation was never removed and remains in its original location, now the Pixie Hollow, where it has been painted green and is used as a planter. The concrete base can be seen, covered in camouflage, netting over the top of Disneyland's signature "Go Away Green" paint, just look behind the Pixie Hollow sign.

Legacy

The House of the Future has had a significant impact on later design at Disney and Epcot. In February 2008, Disney announced it would conceptually bring back the attraction with a more modern and accessible interior. The $15 million Innoventions Dream Home was a collaboration of the

Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...

, software maker LifeWare, and homebuilder

Taylor Morrison Taylor Morrison is one of the largest home building companies in the United States. Its corporate headquarters are in Scottsdale, Arizona. The company formed when Taylor Woodrow and Morrison Homes joined forces in July 2007. Taylor Morrison ope ...

. In 2010, MIT Museum Architecture Curator Gary Van Zante gave a presentation on campus where he showed archived drawings and photographs of the plastic house. The talk, titled ''Back to the Future: A 1950s House of the Future'', was part of the Cambridge Science Festival. The attraction served as the basis for ''

The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse ''The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse'' is an American animated streaming television series produced by Disney Television Animation for Disney+. The series is a continuation and revival of the Emmy Award-winning 2013 ''Mickey Mouse'' shorts, uses ...

'' episode "House of Tomorrow".

References

External links

Monsanto House of the Future at Yesterland
The pages listed on this list of links are partly not available anymore
House of the Future, 1957 (on YouTube)Mickey Mouse Park Information on the Monsanto House of the FutureGo Away Green
{{DEFAULTSORT:Monsanto House Of The Future Former Walt Disney Parks and Resorts attractions Tomorrowland Amusement rides introduced in 1957 Amusement rides that closed in 1967 Disneyland Monsanto Futures projects 1957 establishments in California 1967 disestablishments in California

History

Legacy

See also

References

External links