Mid-Century Modern in the South - Beyond Tiki

A AceExplorer Grand Member (8 years) Deep in the Jacksonville Flori-duh jungle. Joined: Apr 03, 2008 Posts: 2566	A AceExplorer Posted posted on Wed, Nov 4, 2015 8:27 AM I spent some time at the new (June 2014) Cabana Bay Beach Resort in Orlando at the Universal Studios resort complex. Some of what I saw looked like copied art from several of the artists we're used to seeing in and around the tiki scene. For example, this giant wall mural - "The Tourists" Wren House design did much of the work, together with Universal Creative, and Wren has some great photos of the resort on their web site: http://www.wrenhouse-design.com/#!featured/c1jrc Additionally, if you do a Google image search on "Cabana Bay Beach Resort," you will be rewarded with a rich selection of additional photos of this mid-century resort. Is it worth seeing? Definitely, there's a lot of good stuff there, including a "shrine" to Jack LaLanne, the fitness guru, on the walls in the gym. Ok, so, with all this fun retro joy in the resort, what's "wrong" with it? Well, I noticed a few things. Overall the resort is big, much bigger than the mid-century places where this stuff was featured in real life. So you'll see some cavernous spaces adorned with retro icons, art, fabrics, murals, neon signs, etc. and the material seems to get a bit overwhelmed. For example, a neato bowling sign/logo is smack-dab in the middle of a very large white blank wall. The image stands well on its own, but seems a bit forced when placed by itself in the middle of a big wall. Visual proportioning, balance, and attention to the context is a bit wonky due to the size of the resort. It's a very big place. The hotel rooms are colorful, very retro, nicely appointed, and very pleasant to stay in. The seating area for non-restaurant diners is cavernous, and they show vintage TV commercials on four huge screens. There's a Starbucks. The lobby is cool looking. The pool area is interesting. There are many cool fonts and retro-style signs. In summary, the resort is a lot of fun to see, it really embraces and plays well with a lot of familiar mid-century stuff. I recommend looking at the pictures online with Google. And if you're in the Orlando area, you should definitely check it out if time permits. You may even find some very cool Florida-weight retro bowling shirts for sale in one of their well-stocked gift shops. [Edited to fix a typo - "four" instead of "for" huge screens...] [ Edited by: AceExplorer 2015-11-04 08:30 ]

I spent some time at the new (June 2014) Cabana Bay Beach Resort in Orlando at the Universal Studios resort complex. Some of what I saw looked like copied art from several of the artists we're used to seeing in and around the tiki scene. For example, this giant wall mural - "The Tourists"

Wren House design did much of the work, together with Universal Creative, and Wren has some great photos of the resort on their web site:

http://www.wrenhouse-design.com/#!featured/c1jrc

Additionally, if you do a Google image search on "Cabana Bay Beach Resort," you will be rewarded with a rich selection of additional photos of this mid-century resort.

Is it worth seeing? Definitely, there's a lot of good stuff there, including a "shrine" to Jack LaLanne, the fitness guru, on the walls in the gym.

Ok, so, with all this fun retro joy in the resort, what's "wrong" with it?
Well, I noticed a few things. Overall the resort is big, much bigger than the mid-century places where this stuff was featured in real life. So you'll see some cavernous spaces adorned with retro icons, art, fabrics, murals, neon signs, etc. and the material seems to get a bit overwhelmed. For example, a neato bowling sign/logo is smack-dab in the middle of a very large white blank wall. The image stands well on its own, but seems a bit forced when placed by itself in the middle of a big wall. Visual proportioning, balance, and attention to the context is a bit wonky due to the size of the resort. It's a very big place.

The hotel rooms are colorful, very retro, nicely appointed, and very pleasant to stay in. The seating area for non-restaurant diners is cavernous, and they show vintage TV commercials on four huge screens. There's a Starbucks. The lobby is cool looking. The pool area is interesting. There are many cool fonts and retro-style signs.

In summary, the resort is a lot of fun to see, it really embraces and plays well with a lot of familiar mid-century stuff. I recommend looking at the pictures online with Google. And if you're in the Orlando area, you should definitely check it out if time permits. You may even find some very cool Florida-weight retro bowling shirts for sale in one of their well-stocked gift shops.

[Edited to fix a typo - "four" instead of "for" huge screens...]

[ Edited by: AceExplorer 2015-11-04 08:30 ]

Post #753597 by AceExplorer on Wed, Nov 4, 2015 8:27 AM