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Interesting Facts about the construction of Cinderella’s Castle
Cinderella’s Castle is recognised around the world as a symbol of Walt Disney and Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom. Inspiration for the design of the castle came from several French chateaux as well as from the castle as it appears in Disney’s Cinderella film.
The castle took about 18 months to build and was completed in July 1971. It was designed to be tall enough to be seen from the Seven Seas Lagoon, so that visitors could see it as they approached the park It is 189 feet high, but looks much taller than this due to the use of ‘forced perspective’. This means that as the building gets taller its proportions get smaller. Many of the main elements of the castle have been scaled down and angled in particular ways to give the illusion of height and distance. This method is also used in other buildings around the parks.
The building is not built with bricks, as you would think. Inside it is a frame made from six hundred tons of steel. The exterior of the structure is mostly made from a thick, reinforced gypsum plaster, supported by light metal studs. A ten inch thick reinforced concrete wall circles it to the full height of the ‘stone’ wall which we can see surrounding the castle. The exterior walls of the towers are made from fibreglass and the roofs are tiled with the same sort of plastic that is used to make computer monitor casings. The tops of several of the towers, and two of the tallest spires, are made with real gold and gold leaf.
The castle is surrounded by a moat containing about 3,370,000 gallons of water. There are 27 towers in the castle which are numbered, starting at 1 and continuing to 29. There are no towers numbered 13 and 17. These towers were never built as it was decided that they could not actually be seen from anywhere in the park. Tower number 10 has the clock on it and tower numbers 20 and 23 have the gold on them, with tower 20 being the tallest one.
Inside the castle there are three elevators. One is for guests to use and goes from the lobby of Cinderella’s Royal Table to the restaurant on the second floor. The second elevator is for the restaurant staff and is located in Tower 2 and the third elevator is in Tower 20 and goes to the penthouse.
Some people say that the castle can be taken apart in the event of a hurricane, but this would not be possible – it would take far too long, and be too dangerous. Instead, it has been constructed to withstand easily the strong hurricane winds that may occur in the area.
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