FACADES TO WATCH

TOMORROWLAND

Venerable Disneyland attraction, 42

What’s been done: Reality keeps catching up with the future, so Disneyland has once again re-imagined it. The new Tomorrowland--subtitled “Imagination and Beyond”--opens in the spring with a new signature attraction, Astro Orbitor, in which “rocket vehicles of the future” will zoom overhead throughout the themed area. (The ride will trace the route first plied by the dear, departed PeopleMover, but in a zippy four minutes instead of a lumbering 16.). Also planned is Honey, I Shrunk the Audience, a 3-D show, and Innoventions, an interactive pavilion of “near-future technology.” Proven crowd-pleasers such as Star Tours, Space Mountain and the Autopia remain; Captain EO, alas, has been decommissioned.

Outlook for ‘98: Disneyland has learned it is risky to tamper with long-established attractions; angry fans saved Mr. Lincoln from the chopping block a few years back, and the howl could be heard all the way to Burbank this summer when the Main Street Electrical Parade was dumped in favor of Light Magic. This time around, the Magic Kingdom’s turnstile-counters are banking on a great, big, beautiful Tomorrowland.

WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL

New home for the Los Angeles Philharmonic

What’s been done: Launched in 1987 by a $50-million gift from Walt Disney’s widow, the late Lillian B. Disney, the Frank O. Gehry-designed concert hall faced years of delay and spiraling cost estimates that led Los Angeles County to threaten to default the project in 1995. An infusion of donations this year--most recently $25 million from the Walt Disney Co.--has put the $255-million project back on track.

Outlook for ‘98: Fund-raisers are confident that new donations will fill the remaining $25-million funding gap early in the new year. Groundbreaking should begin in summer for a 2001 opening.

NORTON SIMON MUSEUM

Opened in 1969 as the Pasadena Art Museum but fell into debt and was reorganized in 1974 by late industrialist Simon to house his collection

What’s been done: For the last two years museum President Jennifer Jones Simon has been working with Los Angeles-based architect Frank O. Gehry and garden designer Nancy Goslee Power on a $5-million renovation of the museum’s building and grounds. So far, three of the four upper-level wings have been transformed by new skylights, raised ceilings, new wood and stone floors and warm gray, beige and mulberry walls. The galleries’ original rounded contours have been squared off and long corridors have been divided into intimate viewing spaces.

Outlook for ‘98: Simon’s Indian and Southeast Asian collection will be installed on the lower level next month. Next on the agenda is refurbishment and reinstallation of the southwest wing upstairs, which has displayed the Asian works. The entire project is expected to be complete by early summer.