The Science Museum is, as you'd expect, keen on Imax. It is building one into the new wing of its South Kensington base. Since the NMP in Bradford is a branch of the Science Museum, it sees the Imax as primarily an educational medium, while the BFI in London is concerned more with the art and entertainment aspects. The Bradford museum as a whole is about more than just big films. It now has more, better organised, permanent galleries devoted to the history and technology of the captured image, plus one big new space for temporary exhibitions.

Architecturally, the northern and southern picture palaces have used pretty much the same kit of parts. In fact, you could practically unpeel Avery's frameless glass facade in Waterloo, take it up north, reassemble it in an S-shape, and have the Bradford equivalent by architects Austin-Smith:Lord. But the application of each is very different. At Waterloo, it wraps around a completely new building, keeps out traffic noise, and will display a giant Howard Hodgkin mural. In Bradford, the sheer glass wall extends the public space of what was already a well-established venue. Despite the fact that it is off the map so far as most overseas tourists go, it has proved a popular success: the NMP is the busiest museum in Britain outside London, with about 750,000 visitors a year.

In London, Avery's cinema is conceptually very simple - essentially a big box inside a cylinder - though technically very advanced, particularly in the way it keeps out noise. It sits on springs, for instance, to screen out the rumble of the London Underground lines that run beneath it. And Avery makes as much as he can of the spectacle of cinema, arranging the auditorium so that you arrive right at the foot of the immense silver screen, before climbing up and back to your seat. Special lighting picks out the awesome loudspeaker assemblies, and a big window across the back lets you see right into the projection room with all its kit.

From the outside, it plays to the hilt its role as a new London landmark. But perhaps the most important thing about the new building is the way it attracts people, linking Waterloo Station and the South Bank. Previously, this underworld of subways was virtually a no-go area, unless you were one of London's homeless - for this was the site of the infamous cardboard city. Today, even before the Imax opens, the cleaned-up and repainted subways are bustling with people. When the BFI's £1.2m programme of public art commissions is completed down here, and when Avery has trained his plants across the open space around the Imax to create a green world within the roundabout, things should improve a lot more.

The NMP in Bradford shows that big, successful new museums can exist outside London. The Waterloo Imax shows that forgotten parts of London can be culturally recolonised. Are we finally seeing the start of the new South Bank cultural campus? We are. Expect a complete new Museum of the Moving Image, National Film Theatre, and much else here before too long.

National Museum of Photography, Film & Television
British Film Institute