Designed by Michael Wilford & Partners, the Lowry Arts Centre houses an art gallery, two theatres, an interactive exhibition, corporate hospitality suites, restaurant & bar, coffee shop, bookshops and study centre.  It has proved a big hit since opening, instead of the projected 700,000 visitors annually it has been attracting over a million.

The building commemorates the artist Lawrence Stephen Lowry, 1887-1976, born in nearby Old Trafford.  He was a modest man, a teetotal, non-smoking bachelor, only child of a domineering mother who ridiculed his art.  Although best known for portraying cityscapes of industrial northern England, his work was actually remarkably varied, including portraits, seascapes, interiors, and drawings bordering on the surrealist.  Though frequently dismissed by critics as being parochial and naive, his art gradually acquired fame.  He became a Royal Academician and Freeman of Salford in 1962, and Manchester's Man of the Year in 1966.