Search results
Formerly known as the Team Disney Burbank building, Team Disney – The Michael D. Eisner Building is the main building located at the Walt Disney Studios. Completed in 1990 and designed by Michael Graves , the Team Disney Burbank building contains the office of CEO Robert A. Iger as well as the boardroom for the board of directors.
Oct 22, 2022 · In 1939, Architect Kem Weber designed the brand new Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, scheduled for completion by January of 1940. The new Streamline Moderne studio would be an increasing model of efficiency for film production and serve as the worldwide headquarters for the corporation.
- Overview
- History
The Walt Disney Studios (located in Burbank, California) serves as the global headquarters for media conglomerate The Walt Disney Company, and the parent company for Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, Disneynature, 20th Century Studios, 20th Century Animation, and Searchlight Pictures.
Walt Disney Productions staff began the move from the old studio at Hyperion Avenue in Los Angeles on December 24, 1939. Designed primarily by Kem Weber under the supervision of Walt Disney and his brother, Roy, the buildings are the only studios to survive from the Golden Age of filming. The Walt Disney Company is the last remaining Big Ten company to remain independent from a mother company. The Studios are also the only major film/animation studio not to run backlot tours.
The Walt Disney Studios were originally designed around the animation process, with the large animation building in the center of the complex, and adjacent buildings for the story department, the music department, the ink-and-paint departments, and the other various functions of the studio. Both above-ground walkways and tunnels connected the buildings, and the campus also included a movie theatre and a number of soundstages. The Disney feature The Reluctant Dragon, starring Robert Benchley, served as a tour of the then-new studio, which was also frequently seen and toured on the various Walt Disney television programs.
In the late 1940s, the studio began regular work on live-action features until they could resume animated productions fully, as they needed the money. Though their first films were shot in England, the necessity to build live-action facilities still arose. Lacking the capital to do it themselves, Jack Webb offered to put up some of the money to build live-action stages in exchange for their use (Webb used it to shoot much of the Dragnet TV series). During this time, back lots were also built and remained standing at the studios until Michael Eisner and Frank Wells joined the company in 1984.
In 1986, after the corporate restructuring of Walt Disney Productions into The Walt Disney Company, the buildings were remodeled to accommodate more live-action production space and administrative offices. The Studios are now made up of multiple office and administration buildings and ten soundstages. The primary building is the commanding Team Disney Burbank building, completed in 1990 and designed by Michael Graves. The Team Disney Burbank building contains the office of President and CEO Robert A. Iger, as well as the boardroom for the Board of Directors. It also houses offices for members of Senior Management, such as Andy Bird, head of Walt Disney International, Jay Rasulo, President of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, and Dick Cook, Chairman of Walt Disney Studio Entertainment. The building is sometimes called the Seven Dwarfs Building; it has a stunning fascia of the seven dwarfs holding up the roof of the building.
On January 23, 2006, in honor of Michael Eisner's 21-year leadership of the company, the Team Disney building, was rededicated as Team Disney - The Michael D. Eisner Building.
During the restructuring, the animation facilities were spun off to officially create Walt Disney Feature Animation as a subsidiary of the company, and its operations were moved to the Air Way warehouse in Glendale. In 1995, a new Feature Animation building was completed, across the street from the main lot. The new studio is a colorful piece of architecture, adorned by a giant Sorcerer's Hat, which once housed the office of Roy E. Disney, former head of WDFA.
By the 1980s, the Walt Disney Company's collection of film units emerged as one of Hollywood's major film studios, mostly due to newly designed efforts in branding strategies, a resurgence of Walt Disney Productions' animated releases and unprecedented box office successes, particularly from Touchstone Pictures. [15]
Jul 17, 2019 · The Dolphin Hotel, designed by Michael Graves, at Walt Disney World. LightRocket via Getty Images. But to discount the Disney-sponsored architecture of the Eisner era as the folly of a Neo-Gilded Age captain of industry or the excesses of artists blinded by money is to forget that some of the works immediately transcended both genre and ...
- Angela Serratore
The Walt Disney Studios encompasses a collection of respected film studios, including Disney, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, Lucasfilm, Marvel Studios, Searchlight Pictures, and 20th Century Studios.
People also ask
Who designed Disney Studios?
When was Walt Disney Studios built?
When did Walt Disney Studios become a company?
Why did Walt Disney become a major film studio?
How were the Walt Disney Studios designed?
Who designed the Burbank Disney studio?
The creative team operated out of a small building on the Disney studios lot and its members were the first employees of the newly formed WED Enterprises (from the initials Walter Elias Disney). This design and development organization, founded by Walt in December 1952, was the precursor of today's Walt Disney Imagineering.
