Its name, FACT (Film, Art and Creative Technology), could be a Blairite quango. It has erased its previous identity, "Moviola", founded in 1988 to deal with video art and all its ramifications. Yet this FACT thing not only has a new £10m building, not only has cinemas, galleries and spaces that could be either, but has an eclectic list of patrons ranging from Kim "Sex in the City" Cattrall to 1960s waif Rita Tushingham. Clearly there's something a bit different going on.
It has sprung up in the part of Liverpool, close to the centre, known as the Ropewalks, which feels much as London's Clerkenwell or Dublin's Temple Bar did ten or 15 years ago - run-down, but about to be kicked upmarket. The arrival of a cultural venue there is as inevitable as the little squares with nice paving and purpose-designed street furniture now being dotted through the area in the standard European-urbanistic kind of way. What makes this building different from the standard model of contemporary/conceptual gallery or film theatre is the strong personality behind the initiative: amiable shiny-pated Eddie Berg, who founded Moviola on a shoestring all those years ago and found himself - even before the new building opened - running a business with a £1.8m turnover. Berg spotted the potential of this kind of art early enough to carve out a sizeable market niche for his organization. His new base is apparently the first all-new arts venue in Liverpool since the Art Deco Philharmonic Hall, opened in 1939.
FACT's external visual references are ploddingly cinematographic. The building is by architects Austin-Smith: Lord, who designed the successful expansion of the National Museum of Photography, Film and Televison in Bradford a few years back. Working with artist Clive Gillman, they have contrived a façade of zinc panels - vaguely recalling strips of film - wrapping round the corner. The façade includes vertical strips of adjustable neon lighting and a big curving glass window to the freestanding staircase inside. So poor first impressions, but things get much better as you go in.
