The wholesale rethinking of every detail of a modern movie theatre including its size, shape and the services and content it offers, is a growing trend in exhibition driven largely by digital cinema technology. While this trend is happening around the world some of it is market specific: what will work beautifully in one theatre won’t necessarily succeed elsewhere. Veteran exhibitors have always had an intuitive understanding of the communities they serve and now, as the very idea of exhibition is undergoing a major transition, the look and feel of the venue is an even more important element than ever. Gone forever are the days when the goal was to funnel patrons through a tunnel-like configuration geared to get them in, sell them popcorn and soda, get them seated and get them out. Leading theatres today are created from the ground up as destinations for social events of all kinds. The best examples, such as Hollywood Theaters showplace in metropolitan Denver – which was designed by Russell Architects – are doing it in style.
Founded in 1991, Hollywood Theaters, Portland, Oregon, has 546 screens at 49 locations in the continental United States, Hawaii, South Pacific Territories and the Cayman Islands. The company commissioned Russell Architects of Bend Oregon and Mill Valley, California to design a state-of-the-art digital projection fourteen-screen VIP theater complex in Southglenn, Colorado, a suburb of Denver. The theatre is one of the anchors of the new 1.1 million-square-foot Streets at SouthGlenn, an outdoor mall complex that replaced an existing enclosed mall. Itself a new design trend, instead of simply being a collection of retail outlets the Streets at SouthGlenn is a mixed-use development that includes apartments, businesses and a library.
