Leisure parks: components and creators of the new urban landscapes?

Abstract

The article analyses the relationship between leisure parks and the urban world and begins with the hypothesis that the leisure park may serve as a model for metropolitan reconstruction at the same time that it is a major component of it. This signifies that the leisure park, as an image and as an object, ‘permeates’ the modern city, both as a microcosm through specific design features, and as a macrocosm through the design of the entire metropolis. The authors propose to verify this assumption in the case of two French leisure parks. They present, after a general literature review, the results of a survey held in 2012 in Futuroscope and Disneyland Paris, which articulates a historical and statistical evaluation of the impact of these leisure parks in the suburban area with an interpretation of urban symbols and urban images inside both parks. The comparison of the place of urbanity in the two leisure parks and the place of parks in the dynamics of the two urban areas, in these two contrasting places, show the importance of genuine models of urbanity in leisure space, but also its diversity.