From Greenfield to Brownfield: the movement of the multiplex into the urban centre’ (Invited paper)

When Britain’s first multiplex, The Point, opened in Milton Keynes in 1985 the site chosen was a green field one in what was at the time a planned new town. For the next ten years new multiplex developments were primarily on green field and suburban sites around major cities and conurbations. Popularly referred to as out-of-town developments, these new multiplexes were often adjacent to new shopping centres. In Britain during the 1980s there had been a trend towards out-of-town developments, part of a general shift in favour of shopping and leisure in what was rapidly becoming a post-industrial economy, allied to the ongoing growth in car ownership and the decline of the traditional urban centre. However, in the past 10 years there has been a reappraisal of the out-of-town shopping centre, not least because of both the detrimental effect on traditional town and city centres, and the environmental effects of the car as the primary mode of transport. This has meant that the cinema, historically associated with the town and city centre of course, has become an integral part of the development of urban centres once more. This paper considers the reasons for this, how important the cinema is for specifying the urban leisure experience and the impact upon design of multiplexes.