The Chisenhale building was built by Morris Cohen in 1943 at Chisenhale Road London E3 5QZ. It was built to produce veneer for the construction of Spitfire cockpits, as well as propellers and plywood for Mosquito air-craft. In 1972, the building was bought by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets after the works closed.
In the late 1970’s a group of artists took over the lease at Chisenhale Works and that is when the Chisenhale Art Place was born. They were forced to relocate from their previous studios at Butler’s Wharf.
They renovated part of the building and cre- ated 40 studios with each studio ranging from 350 sq ft to 1300 sq ft. The rest of the building which is mainly a large warehouse roughly around 10 meters high and more than 4o meters tall remained empty and there do not appear any plans to redevelop them.