Feasibility Studies, August 2019 – October 2022
Bankhall Street, Govanhill, G42 8SP
Govanhill Picture House was built in 1926 to designs by Eric Sutherland, with a spectacular entrance on Bankhall Street influenced by architectural trends that took inspiration in Egyptian iconography. The Picture House became a local landmark, but stopped operating as a cinema in 1961, later becoming a bingo hall and then, from around 1974, a warehouse for a shoe company. After an additional change of ownership, Glasgow City Council placed it on the Buildings at Risk Register in 1996 due to its poor state of repair. Currently the building is privately owned, and part of the ground floor is leased to a fashion outlet while the rest is vacant.
Once one of six cinemas in Govanhill, Govanhill Picture House fell into disrepair by the 1990s and is now identified as a building at risk. Glasgow Artists’ Moving Image Studios (GAMIS SCIO) is a charity working to bring cinema and the arts back to the historic site of the Picture House.
An architect-led feasibility study was produced by Studio Niro in August 2020, funded by Glasgow City Heritage Trust and the Architectural Heritage Fund. This explored renovation of the building to provide studios, screening space, a darkroom, breakout meeting space, further workspace and a café or bar, to be operated by a tenant. This study also set out several options for ownership and management of the building. The preferred option identified and advised by the Heritage Trust Network was for GAMIS SCIO to purchase the building, forming a trading subsidiary to manage the building and existing and new commercial tenancies.
Grant-aided by Glasgow City Heritage Trust and the Architectural Heritage Fund.
Offline 
Leave a comment