Town Cinema

The town cinema was fitted out between 1942 and 1943 by building master Sigurður Halldórsson and furniture architect Skarphéðinn Jóhannsson. It was opened on 10 January 1945. Great care was taken with the cinema's design at the time. Bæjarbíó is the only mid-20th-century cinema to have been preserved in its original form.

The authors of the murals in the foyer, which are a kind of symbol for Hafnarfjörður (the sailor and the fish-processing girl), are Ásgeir Júlíusson and Atli Már. There is also a large painting by the artist Eiríkur Smith of Sólvangur, as the profits from the operation of Bæjarbíó were used to build this well-known care home.

In 1970, regular film screenings in the building ceased, and the Hafnarfjörður Theatre Society was given premises there. The National Film Archive of Iceland took over the cinema in 1997. A professional restoration of the cinema auditorium was then undertaken, and film screenings resumed there in December 2001. During the restoration, Skarphéðinn's original drawings were used as a model, and great care was taken to preserve the murals and other unique features that give the cinema its historical value. Among other things, the original film projectors were restored so that films could be shown as they were when the cinema first opened in 1945. This original method of film projection has been discontinued elsewhere in the country.

Today, the running of the cultural centre is in the hands of Páll Eyjólfsson and Pétur Stephensen, whose guiding principle is to maintain a diverse and vibrant cultural programme at the Bæjarbíó.