The Central Milton Keynes shopping area is a regional shopping centre located in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England which is about north-west of London. It comprises two adjacent shopping centres, the grade II listed building thecentre:mk (originally named the 'Shopping Building') which opened in 1979, and Midsummer Place opened in 2000. The centre:mk is anchored by John Lewis and Marks & Spencer. The complex is the 14th largest shopping centre in the UK, with the size of 120,773 sq metres. Development The Milton Keynes Development Corporation (MKDC) began work on the Shopping Building in 1973. It was to be the largest building of Central Milton Keynes, and was built at almost the highest point in the "New City". The architects were Derek Walker, Stuart Mosscrop, and Christopher Woodward, who had been Chief and senior architects at the Development Corporation; and the engineers were Felix Samuely and Partners. The shopping area was opened on 25 September 1979 by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The building's sleek envelope accommodated 130 shops and six department stores, arranged along two parallel day-lit arcades, planted with sub-tropical and temperate trees. Architecture The cool, elegant, steel framed design was influenced by the architecture of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and echoed glazed shopping streets or arcades on the grand scale of the Galleria in Milan. The designer, Derek Walker, also likened it to the Crystal Palace. It was described in 1993 as "still the best-looking if no longer the biggest shopping centre in the British Isles". It is unusual for second generation shopping centres in Europe for the amount of daylight allowed into the public areas, for the rigorous control of retail facias along the arcades themselves, for its public art, the unusually high level of accessibility for visitors with limited mobility (and other users laden with children and shopping), the lavish extent of the public spaces and their interior planting (reduced since the buildings was completed) and for the cool mirrored exterior. Public access to all units is flush and at ground level. Some of the shops e.g. John Lewis and Next have two or three floors inside. A service road for deliveries runs above the shops, so that large trucks may service the shops at roof level, removing the peripheral service roads and loading bays at ground level that mar so many large shopping malls. This means all deliveries take place out of view of the