Manchester Societies : Societies in Greater Manchester

Corner House Cinema

Cornerhouse is Manchester's international centre for contemporary visual arts and film.

Located in the heart of the city and open seven days a week, we have 3 floors of contemporary art galleries, 3 screens showing the best of independent cinema, a bar, café and bookshop.

We also operate Cornerhouse Publications, an international distribution service for visual arts books and catalogues. Cornerhouse is an independent charitable trust: Greater Manchester's international centre for cinema and contemporary visual art. Cornerhouse was conceived by a group of people in Manchester known as 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, two bookshops, café and bar you see today. Its mission, as it still is, was to be a place where audiences, artists and filmmakers are brought together to experience and debate cultural practice and ideas through a unique programme that aims to stimulate, entertain and inform.