Microcinemas Rising in Europe: New Spatial Trends in Movie Theaters

The research paper proposes a critical survey of recently emerged, new architectural spatial forms for hosting movie theaters in the European context. A trend showing a renewed focus on the quality of movies and programming, reverberating in the architectural space of cinema halls, which tend to adapt their features toward small numbers, focusing on privacy and fellowship among a few viewers, and searching for a kind of coziness, transforming cinema halls into spaces with an almost domestic feeling. This new kind of movie theater, called microcinema, is a fluid space within broader functions, where watching the projection on a screen offers an opportunity for intellectual speculation, no longer tied to personal concentration alone, but to public dialogue, where sharing empathy is the more critical experience, providing elements for a new systematic approach to the movie theater design.