My friend Werner Weiss and I were discussing this very same idea one day. Here are his thoughts which by the way, mirror my feelings almost exactly:
"Instead of imploding the existing buildings and starting over, I'd like to see The Walt Disney Company make the Disneyland Hotel's mid-century modern architecture into a virtue rather than a liability.
Today, it seems that Disney is saying, "Don't looking up at the ugly buildings. Keep your eyes low and enjoy the 'Magical' Disney-ish things we've done at ground level. Try to forget that the buildings scream 1960's (even though some are newer than that)."
Instead, I'd like to see the Disneyland Hotel adopt a strong late-1950's/early-1960's theme, with signs, colors, restaurants, furniture, uniforms, decor, artwork, and landscaping that immerse guests in the era when the Disneyland Monorail first began serving the Disneyland Hotel. By the way, the buildings aren't ugly; they're actually very nicely designed examples of the era. The Hotel should take guests back in time, just as most of Disney's deluxe hotels in Florida do. Only it would be a different time period.
Take a look at the website of the Renaissance Hollywood at
http://www.renaissancehollywood.com/ -- you'll find pictures of the rooms, with their wild mid-century modern colors and furniture. With its more spacious grounds and its multiple buildings, the Disneyland Hotel could way outdo the Renaissance Hollywood.
Think about the possibilities for restaurants. Think about tiki revival. Think about the "space age." Think about the Googie style. "Retro" is fun. In fact, look to Tomorrowland in the 1950's for inspiration.
The 900-or-so rooms, the restaurants, and the convention facilities are valuable assets. It would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to replace them. There's no reason to tear them down.
As they say, when you have a lemon, make lemonade. The Disneyland Hotel isn't a lemon. But Disney guests expect immersive, themed hotels—and the Disneyland Hotel fails to meet that expectation in its current form.
Let the Imagineers have fun immersing guests in another era!
(Hmmmm... Maybe I should expand on what I've written here as the subject of a future article for Yesterland.)"
He basically took the words right out of my mouth but they were his words entirely.
www.magicalhotel.com