Disneyland's House of the Future first opened in June 1957, and visitors stood
in long lines for a look into housing's crystal ball. They were curious about the
space-age home and its high-tech parts. Who designed the House of the Future,
and what did they hope to accomplish?
The chemical manufacturer Monsanto, with an eye on new markets for its
products, wanted to prove plastics had a place in housing. With the intensity of
rocket scientists racing to the moon, it took just four short years for a Monsanto-
MIT research team to come up with this bold new design for a molded plastic
modular house. These were