About
Our history
Cornerhouse was founded by the Greater Manchester Visual Arts Trust, chaired by Sir Bob Scott who fought two Olympic campaigns for Manchester and brought the 2002 Commonwealth Games to the city.
Members of the trust were enthusiasts of visual and performing arts and film who saw a need for a contemporary arts space within the city and region.
With the support of the then Greater Manchester County Council and Manchester City Council, North West Arts Association (now part of Arts Council England) and the British Film Institute, a feasibility study for the organisation was commissioned and the old furniture shop on the Oxford Road site was chosen.
Cornerhouse was opened in 1985 after the former Shaw’s furniture store and Tatler Cinema Club were converted into the three cinemas, three galleries, bookshop, café and bar you see today.
Our mission, as it still is, was to be a place where audiences, artists and filmmakers are brought together to experience and debate contemporary ideas through a unique, risk taking, cross art-form and culturally diverse high quality programme of art and film.
We’re now looking forward to the future with our merger with the Library Theatre Company and our move to our new home at First Street in 2014.
