“The floors on which you are walking, the gently sloping walls around you, and even the ceilings are made of plastics.” Thus went the description of the Monsanto House of the Future, which beckoned visitors to tour its all-plastic interior at Disneyland in Anaheim, CA. It was a beacon of mid-century modernity in Tomorrowland from 1957, just a couple of years after the theme park opened, until 1967, when it was removed because the future had moved on. But for the better part of a decade, it fascinated park visitors with its cantilevered wings, seeming to float above the meticulous landscaping, and jet-age interior.

From MIT to the House of Mouse

The house was not dreamt up by Walt Disney’s renowned band of Imagineers, however, but was designed by faculty members of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“The house was the marriage of converging needs,” writes Lisa Scanlon in “The House of the Future that Wasn’t,” an article published in the Jan. 1, 2005, edition of MIT Technology Review. “During the early 1950s, homebuilders could barely keep up with demand as families moved to the suburbs. At the same time, Monsanto Chemical was looking for new markets for its plastic products. Seeing a business opportunity, the company sponsored research at MIT to design a low-cost, prefabricated house that would be made almost entirely of plastic.'' The researchers suggested a rounded, Jetsons-worthy home which delighted Monsanto. MIT researchers spent two years designing the 1,280-square-foot house, and in 1956, Monsanto built a full-scale prototype. “Meanwhile, Walt Disney was searching for exhibits for Disneyland, which had opened in 1955. He heard about the futuristic house and offered Monsanto space to display the prototype,” writes Scanlon.

Space-age design

The house consisted of a central square room with four wings, or rooms: A master bedroom, children’s bedroom, dining room, and living room. The kitchen and a bathroom were at the center. “Each wing was made of fiberglass modules placed one on top of the other to form the ceiling, floor, and a wall; the remaining two walls were windows,” writes Scanlon.

Space-age convenience was center stage in the kitchen, where most people caught their first glimpse of a microwave oven, and living room, dominated by a huge TV bolted to the wall that replicated the shape of the cathode ray tube display familiar to families at the time. But the unmistakable star of this entire attraction was the miracle material itself plastic.

''It was the permanence, the durability of plastic that made the Monsanto house a marvel,'' writes Bernard Cooper in his book Maps to Anywhere, referenced in the Disney Avenue website. ''The wings, it was said, would never sag. The plastic floor would never buckle, chip, or crack.'' At the time, 30% of Monsanto's business was in plastics, synthetic resins, and surface coatings, adds Keith Michael Mahne, owner and editor of Disney Avenue.

More than 435,000 visitors ambled through the house within the first six weeks, and it ultimately welcomed more than 20 million visitors before being closed, according to Disney Avenue.

Out of time

By the mid-1960s, and even a little before to be honest, the vision of modernity represented by the House of the Future looked dated. It was torn down in December 1967, but not without a struggle. The planned one-day demolition stretched into two weeks, according to Yesterland, a website devoted to discontinued Disneyland attractions. The wrecking ball is said to have bounced off the exterior, and “workers had to painstakingly cut the house into pieces with hacksaws.”

Today, plastic is used throughout Disneyland, of course, to build rides and fuel imaginations, but it’s not called out as part of the attraction. And Monsanto, after a troubled history, was absorbed by Bayer in 2018 in a $63 billion buyout.

It is ironic, though, that the Jetsons-infused mid-century design of the House of the Future, which seemed like a relic in 1967, is once again trés chic in certain circles. Just a few miles northwest of Disneyland sits another icon from that era the Theme Building at Los Angeles International Airport. In 2007, it was renovated at a cost of $12.3 million, ensuring its preservation for generations to come.