Hulk's Mathmagic Land - 2. Pavilion Overview

Mathmagic Land: Brazil’s Math Pavilion Adds Up

Mathmagic Land is a whimsical, playful pavilion designed for all ages, but for youngest guests especially. Mathmagic Land is detailed, human scale, and easily grasped. The pavilion showcases the pure theoretical science behind mathematics, then lets guests explore math’s real world applications. This is meant as the park’s Toontown or Imagination equivalent: a fun, approachable, hands-on creative space designed to offset the stentorian grandeur found elsewhere.

A New World of Geometry Takes Shape

Mathmagic Land is a mental realm made real, a world where mathematics manifests as a colorful, otherworldly landscape. The entire pavilion, inside and out, boasts a midcentury aesthetic inspired by Mary Blair, John Hench, and the UPA graphic art style.

Combine this timeless, stylized vibe with extra touches both forward-looking (lush landscaping and manmade “trees” based on Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay) and backward-looking (storybook curlicue forms taken from Antonio Gaudi’s turn-of-the-century Parque Guell). That is the playful, whimsical realm of Mathmagic Land!

Mathmagic Land’s high-energy musical score

With such a grab bag of visual influences, mathematically-derived music is the glue which holds the pavilion together. In this arena, the pavilion's designers pull from local Brazilian influences, fashioning a medley of Latin American classical orchestral tunes. These festive dance tunes turn the always-colorful, ever-moving mathematical wonderland into a perpetual festival!

One more unifying factor across this eclectic realm is color. Mathmagic Land has a rigid color scheme of blues and magenta pinks with yellow highlights, all offset by the gardens’ tropical greenery. Abstract shapes and solid bold tones dominate. Manmade plants, many of them spinning kinetic whirligigs, appear as geometric shapes.

Spiral seashells inspire the Grand Spiral

Rolling, explorable gardens off from the main midway lead to Mathmagic Land’s major architectural statement – an organic, curvilinear structure based on the Golden Spiral. This is the Grand Spiral, which holds a majority of Mathmagic Land's features. Gentle hillsides beyond hide larger show buildings. The overall composition, seen from arrival, is subtly asymmetrical while still resolutely mathematical, inviting curiosity. If this spiral structure resembles equal parts nautilus seashell and snail shell, that is no accident. Nature is full of natural mathematical patterns. You'll see that in the organically spiraling glass-and-steel megastructure, sure, with its panels subtly recalling Singapore’s Jewel Changi Airport. You’ll see it in the smaller spiral domes growing from the main building.

You’ll see it too in smaller artificial objects strewn throughout the gardens. These art pieces (many of them kinetic) resemble natural forms such as snowflakes, crystals, and coral. Prominent topiaries throughout form Arabic numerals. Smaller Imagineer-made “plants” appear as cones & cubes & icosahedrons. The most noteworthy form, seen everywhere, takes the spiraling form of Romanesco broccoli. There’s real broccoli in the landscaping, too, plus artichoke, sunflowers, cacti, all the most geometrically beautiful plants.

The most noteworthy “plants,” though, would be the iconic SymmeTrees. These can be found flanking the initial SymmeTree Plaza, surrounding a 10-foot diameter armillary sphere which is set partially into the ground. The SymmeTrees, like a storybook, Disney-fied version of Singapore’s Supertrees, rise gracefully overhead. At night, LED lighting within the bark makes the trees glow. That bark inexplicably forms numbers 0 through 9, while the roots are shaped like squares…square roots! Twisted, gnarled, angular blue branches also form numbers and common geometric shapes. Actual vines creep around the manmade trunks, intertwining the natural and the artificial as one.

Curlicue arterial paths wind organically through the gardens. Look down at the pavement, and at the sweeping concrete benches along the planters, and you’ll discover lovely human-scale details. Gorgeous, elaborate tilework abounds, handmade in homage to Antonio Gaudi. Tiles depict Euclidean geometric proofs.

Wide central tile roads lead to the Grand Spiral. To the left, a smaller path approaches the Infinicoaster kiddie coaster. This toyetic, kinetic, ever-moving outdoors ride is likely to first draw guests to Mathmagic Land. The right path leads to something equally engrossing, the GeomeTree Gardens splash pad full of arcing, playful fountains. A waterfall and river cut through both exterior attractions, falling from a Gaudi-esque hillside over the roller coaster and passing under multiple bridges. Somehow, bright pink Arabic numerals float down the stream – a simple physical effect achieved with floating foam props which are circulated back upstream by hidden conveyor belts. Past each bridge, the numbers appear to grow smaller, as the bridges hide additional recirculation points for ever-smaller numerals. The river concludes in a whirlpool within GeomeTree Gardens, spiraling like everything else. The overall garden effect is somewhat like Blair’s Alice in Wonderland!

Image: Disney

Let us now enter the Grand Spiral pavilion interior through vestibules framed by arches. The first thing you’ll notice is the air conditioning…always 72 degrees Fahrenheit. Despite the natural light flowing in through latticework glass panels, you can always recover in here. You’ll also notice a central floor mosaic based on Fermat’s Spiral, often seen in sunflower seeds. Beyond that you’ll see a spinning mobile art structure like those of Alexander Calder, this one bearing a kinetic “planetary model” of basic geometric shapes. The spiral motif permeates this space, from wall tiles to the overhead layout. Benching alcoves along the walls and through the central median themselves form little spiral nooks for smaller groups. The route inwards wends right, and ever tighter, as the curve reveals a stylized Parthenon portico leading to the pavilion’s centerpiece dark ride.

Image: Park Lore

That ride would be Donald Duck’s Adventures Through Mathmagic Land…though park guests typically use the term “Mathmagic Land” interchangeably for both the pavilion and the ride. To the ride’s left, a Mathmagic Land Five & Prime corner bodega, as well as the restrooms...identifiable by a large “#2” naturally. To the ride's right is the interactive Pythagorean Playground. And twisting ever inwards to the main spiral’s central whorl, you’ll find the Golden Spiral Cantina overlooking the gardens (plus its supporting π Shoppe window). All of these features, we shall visit in turn. Read on…

Read on...!

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Disneyland Brazil, Disneyland Brazil Resort