Where did walt Disney get the inspiration for the castle at the Magic Kingdom?

He got the idea from a magic mushroom trip.

No you have to go further south.

The Magic Kingdom is a theme park within the Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, near Orlando. It is owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company - and opened on October 1, 1971. Designed and built by WED Enterprises (now known as Walt Disney Imagineering), the park's layout and attractions are similar to Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California, which opened in 1955.

In the distance beyond the end of Main Street stands Cinderella Castle. Though only 189 feet (55m) tall, it benefits from a technique known as forced perspective. The (fake) second stories of all the buildings along Main Street are shorter than the first stories, and the third stories are even shorter than the second, and the top windows of the castle are much smaller than they appear. The resulting visual effect is that the buildings appear to be larger and taller than they really are.

Walt Disney was inspired by the stories of the Brothers Grim - the german writers of childrens stories, and early on in his work was looking for models to set Cinderella to. Some of the early Grim books had used illustrations from the Limberg books of hours, to inspire the woodcuts.

Walt discovered the perfect castle in Bavaria - Ironically it too was inspired by the woodcuts in the Grim stories. The conception of Schloss Neuschwanstein was outlined by Ludwig II in a letter to Richard Wagner, dated May 13, 1868;

"It is my intention to rebuild the old castle ruin at Hohenschwangau near the Pollat Gorge in the authentic style of the old German knights' castles...the location is the most beautiful one could find, holy and unapproachable, a worthy temple for the divine friend who has brought salvation and true blessing to the world."

The coat of arms of Ludwig over the entrance to the castle.The foundation stone of the building was laid September 5, 1869. Neuschwanstein was designed by Christian Jank, a theatrical set designer, rather than an architect, which says much regarding Ludwig's intentions and explains much of the fantastical nature of the resulting building. The architectural expertise, vital to such a perilously-sited building, was provided first by the Munich court architect, Eduard Riedel, and latterly by Georg Dollman and Leo von Klenze.

The castle was originally called "New Hohenschwangau Castle" until the king's death, when it was re-named Neuschwanstein, the castle of the Swan Knight, Lohengrin, of Wagner's opera of the same name. In origin, the castle has been the Schwanstein, the seat of the knights of Schwangau, whose emblem had been the swan.

However, despite Neuschwanstein Castle being the original inspiration for Walt Disney in his concept for the castle in the classic animated feature Cinderella...The magic kingdoms Cinderella Castle was tweaked a little bit by the imagineers, and they choose several French castles fr thier inspiration, most notably Château de Pierrefonds, Château d'Ussé, Fontainebleau, Versailles, chateaux of Chenonceau, Château de Chambord, Chaumont, and the Alcázar in Segovia, Spain.

Usse was the inspiration for the original book of hours... and is called the castle of the sleeping beauty.

Walt Disney received his inspiration for Snow White's castle while visiting St Hilarion Castle in Northern Cyprus.

The writer Rose Macaulay was also enchanted by it, calling it 'a picture-book castle for elf-kings.'

HEllo,

It is based on King Ludwigs Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria. It is just a smaller version.

My understanding is that is is a combination of the animated castles in Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, but the greatest part is from Cinderella's Castle in the drawing from the movie.

Schloss Neuschwanstein in Germany

walt disney world's castle is the one from cinderella

disneyland's is the castle from sleeping beauty~~~

This is what Walt Disney would say,"it was all started by a mouse".

The belief here in Spain is that he based it on the castle in Segovia. Could be. It does look a bit like it.

I could tell you where he got the inspiration.

He visited ARGENTINA and there's a place called KID COUNTRY its a free place where kids can go and its full of small castle houses and small trains to ride on etc.

Being in ARGENTINA he visited a place called BARILOCHE and visited a forest there. so when you see snow white , he got the idea from this place.

I could search to send you pictures of his visit or any info regarding my answer if you need it.

Take care

Why thumbs down if this is true?

the only person who answered this correctly was silverearth. davidc managed to babble on.