100 Objects from Century of the Child

Mary Blair. Concept art for “it’s a small world” attraction. 1963 Disneyland presented itself as timeless and magical, but the technology and research behind the park’s attractions were highly sophisticated. Rides such as It’s a Small World, originally part of the Pepsi and UNICEF pavilion at the New York World’s Fair in 1964–65, were animated by Disney’s Audio-Animatronic technology, which allowed figures and other parts of the exhibits to move pneumatically in time with recorded sound. Boats efficiently moved visitors through the spectacle of hundreds of childlike dolls singing the same song in different languages. The near-identical dolls, whose production Disney supervised, were distinguished by stereotyped traditional clothing of different countries and were set against abstracted images of those lands. Learn more at MoMA.org/centuryofthechild

Mary Blair. Concept art for “it’s a small world” attraction. 1963

Disneyland presented itself as timeless and magical, but the technology and research behind the park’s attractions were highly sophisticated. Rides such as It’s a Small World, originally part of the Pepsi and UNICEF pavilion at the New York World’s Fair in 1964–65, were animated by Disney’s Audio-Animatronic technology, which allowed figures and other parts of the exhibits to move pneumatically in time with recorded sound. Boats efficiently moved visitors through the spectacle of hundreds of childlike dolls singing the same song in different languages. The near-identical dolls, whose production Disney supervised, were distinguished by stereotyped traditional clothing of different countries and were set against abstracted images of those lands.

Learn more at MoMA.org/centuryofthechild

09/7/12
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moma  Century of the Child  cotc  child  kids  art  design  play  Disney 

Accent theme by Handsome Code

Get your daily dose of design from the MoMA exhibition Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900–2000. During each of the 100 days of the exhibition we will showcase an object featured in the show.

To find out more about Century of the Child visit MoMA.org/centuryofthechild.

Purchase the exhibition catalogue on MoMAStore.org or get the digital edition for the iPad on iTunes.

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