Chris Foxx, who created the excellent Haunted Mansion information cache that is GrimGhosts.com, has a new blog called "Passport to Dreams Old and New". In it she critiques the design, function, and meaning of "themed" space as invented by Walt Disney’s Imagineers. I recommend devouring the whole site if you have some downtime this holiday weekend.
Her latest post on the Aesthetics History of EPCOT is an accessible look at what separates EPCOT from the rest of Walt Disney World in terms of space and architecture.
What EPCOT evolved as is actually a remarkably sophisticated contrast
to Disney’s Magic Kingdom park concept in and of itself. Whereas the
disparate areas of Magic Kingdom-style parks seek to interface with
each other in a way which is unique and simultaneously discreet, EPCOT
takes the concept of the land entryway / bridge and removes all other
elements, filling the spaces in between with “filler” designed to evoke
“scope” – rolling lawns, flowers, lakes, trees.
Part of her goal is to define a useful vocabulary to talk about imagineering themed attractions in the classic Disney style.