Light box.

This energetic conflation of sculptural and superscale elements proves that multiplex cinemas can have architectural presence.

The survival of cinema as a popular entertainment form has been predominantly at the expense of its architecture. Cinemas have endured a depressing evolution, from the tantalisingly escapist grandeur of the original urban picture palaces, to the monotonous anonymity of contemporary suburban multiplexes. Even though multi-screen cinemas are now an established building type, cinema operators and their architects are reluctant to investigate the potential this might present, content instead to promulgate a reductivist banality. So it is heartening to consider an exception to this formulaic rule - here in the form of a new multiplex cinema in Duluth, Georgia, by Richard Rauh & Associates.

The scheme was developed by O'Neil Theatres, an independent multiplex cinema operator aimed at the budget, 'second-run' market in the south-east states. While first-run cinemas can rely on the publicity generated by a film's initial release to guarantee custom, second-run operators depend on low admission prices and convenient locations to attract filmgoers. In the same way that videos sustain public interest in a film long after its initial run, second-run houses are able to show a particular programme for as long as customers are interested in it. Despite the economies underpinning this process, second-run operators occupy an independent position traditionally associated with repertory playhouses and arthouse cinemas, whose programmes are influenced more by public preference than the dictates of industry moguls. And, as with repertory house, where some sense of character and identity are an integral part of the cinema going experience, budget operators have come to acknowledge the advantages of providing similar enticements.

O'Neil Theatres' new multiplex in Duluth, a suburb of Atlanta, was designed with these factors in mind. More pertinently, although a radical departure from the company's generic aesthetic, programme and costs were consistent with previous buildings. The Duluth location is one of the most intensely developed out of town locations in Atlanta, so the new complex required some kind of extraordinary visual impact in order to attract a largely car bound populace. The outcome is a modern, reinvented version of the familiar American strip building. The new cinema forms part of a previously redundant mini-mall - a portion of the mall was, in fact, demolished to make way for it. Richard Rauh's composition of elemental forms is on the same scale as the interstate highway that scythes past the site. In this highly commercial environment, the predominant features are illuminated signs, creating a surreal suburban landscape, especially at night. Rather than embellish the new cinema on a small scale, the architects chose to exploit the geometric potential of the massive building envelope. To this end, a 194ft (59.1 m) long gutter element, 6ft (1.83 m) in diameter, is notched into one of the canted walls that enclose the whale-like hulk of the main auditorium. By day, the theatrically oversized gutter registers as a silver tube; at night it is illuminated by continuous fluorescent billboard lights and appears to float in mid-air, like some surreally dislocated light sculpture.

Not simply an accretional rectangular mass, the new auditorium block containing a dozen screens (ten 140-seat and two 190-seat theatres) extrudes into the voids of the adjacent mall. In effect, the cinema lobby colonises one end of the tall bay of the mall's abandoned concourse. The extra height in the old concourse shell is first filled and then carved out again to create a skewed vault within the metal skinned cinema matrix. This vault defines the cinema lobby. Throughout the building, there is a juxtaposition between the spidery framework of handrails, canopies and other elements, and the bulk of the blind box containing the cinemas. To the rear of the auditorium is an obliquely positioned exit ramp embellished with a translucent fibreglass screen that casts a green veil over the exuberantly tectonic fire stair. Through this witty combination of sculptural and superscale elements, an essentially mundane programme has been imaginatively transformed into a sequence of material and spatial delights.