The shopping complex, recently re-branded as ‘thecentre:mk’, was designed by Christopher Woodward in association with Derek walker and Stuart Mosscrop. The design followed the minimalist principles of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and envisaged glass-covered shopping streets and arcades on the scale of the Galleria in Milan.
The building’s glass-and-steel envelope accommodated 130 shops and six department stores arranged in two parallel day-illuminated arcades, planted with sub-tropical and temperate trees. It was described in 1993 as ‘still the best-looking if no longer the biggest shopping centre in the British Isles’.
In November 2008 English Heritage, the government’s advisor on historic buildings, recommended to the Culture Minister that the original building be designated as Grade II-listed.
The Milton Keynes Shopping Centre contains more than 240 shops, cafes and restaurants and attracts about 30 million visits a year. The building is a good example of Miesian modernist minimalism in glass and steel. It won a number of architectural awards, when constructed and remains a valued element of Milton Keynes. The building won the British Constructional Steel Association Award in 1979, RIBA Southern Region Award in 1980 and the European Convention for Constructional Steelwork Award in 1980.
