Trinity Square, Gateshead

The car park was designed in 1962 by the Owen Luder Partnership when Brutalism was regarded as the cutting edge of architecture, but by the time that it opened in 1967, interest in the movement had begun to decline.

A cafe unit in a contrasting box structure sat above the top tier of the car park connected to the access towers by a glazed bridge and an open walkway.

At the same time nearby Newcastle upon Tyne had begun the covered Eldon Square Shopping Centre and this further undermined the long-term success of the development.

Local businessman Cliff Brumby (Bryan Mosley) meets Jack Carter (Michael Caine) at the incomplete rooftop café, as he is in the process of developing it into a restaurant.

A radiophonic tribute to Trinity Square, produced by Langham Research Centre, the programme was made entirely from the sounds of the car park, processed and treated on quarter-inch tape, featuring interviews with its architect Owen Luder, and representatives from the Twentieth Century Society and Gateshead Council.

[4] The car park was the subject of scale (1/16 inch=1 foot), a dual channel super 16 mm film transferred to video, 16 minutes long and made in 2003.

shot a video showing the group performing their third single "Who'd Have Thought", which reached number 7 in the UK Indie chart in 1984, at the top of the 15 storey car park.

The 1985 opening of the Gateshead Interchange, a bus and metro transport hub, combined with changes to town centre access for private motorists, made the car park largely redundant.

[6] During the 1980s and 1990s, there were various proposals to redevelop the car park as a contemporary art gallery or events venue (and in 1983 Charlie Hooker and the Newcastle-based Basement Group organised Mainbeam – a ballet for vehicles there), but as the structure was regarded as a civic white elephant, these all met with local resistance.

At the same time general interest in the car park increased, partly as a reflection of the recognition of Get Carter as a classic of British cinema, with Sylvester Stallone lending his weight to the calls for it to be preserved as a cinematic landmark.

[9] The site was subsequently redeveloped by Spenhill Developments, a division of Tesco,[10][11] and a large supermarket, which was built by Bowmer + Kirkland, was completed in 2013.