The view from Lime Street station is quite a shock at first. Liverpool, as it feverishly prepares for its year as the European Capital Culture, looks more like a booming Chinese city, with countless cranes puncturing its skyline.
New buildings are shooting up everywhere, led by the £1bn Grosvenor project to create masses of space for leisure, hotel and retail uses.
But while places to eat, sleep and shop are important, it is culture that most people will be coming for next year. And the development of the cultural programme has been far less straightforward than the physical rebirth of the city through new architecture.
"The process has been very tortuous, almost inevitably because clearly it is not easy to structure and deliver a phenomenon where nobody really understands what it is you are supposed to be doing," says David Fleming, the director of National Museums Liverpool (NML).
"There is no model, no patent. So each time a city becomes a capital of culture it is trying to invent something on its own terms and this is what Liverpool is doing."
It is certainly true that many capital of culture cities have struggled in the years running up to the event.
"The context is that it is not a three-week festival, it is a one-off, year-long programme," says Fiona Gasper, the executive producer at the Liverpool Culture Company, the organisation set up by Liverpool City Council to deliver the programme.
"With an annual festival you have time to build an audience, but with a one-off event such as this it is about the future of the city, so we have to be really careful."
But while there are certainly challenges in creating such a wide-ranging programme, political infighting has not helped. The pair behind the city's bid to become capital of culture, Liberal Democrat council leader Mike Storey and city council chief executive David Henshaw, have been at loggerheads and both have stepped down.
"One of the characteristics in how this all works, and that includes the capital of culture, is the very sophisticated and complex politics of the place," says Fleming. "This is the city that at the height of Thatcherism went militant and described itself as the city that dared to fight.
"That is the politics with a big P; the politics with a small p is that it feels like a city where democracy has gone mad," Fleming continues.
"Everyone does genuinely feel they have a voice in the way this city works. Stick that with the complex and sophisticated politics, alongside regeneration, alongside the capital of culture and you have a really heady mix. That is an explanation why it has not been a smooth
process, as nothing has a smooth passage in Liverpool."
Organisational problems at the Liverpool Culture Company have made matters worse. Three executives have resigned since 2004, including the artistic director Robyn Archer, who went in July 2006, leaving a huge hole in the creative direction of the programme. The last-minute cancellation of the Mathew Street Musical Festival in August for health and safety reasons seemed another bad omen.
Despite all this, there is a feeling among those working in Liverpool's cultural sector that everything is going to be fine. This September the board of the Liverpool Culture Company was slimmed down to six members from 14 (itself a smaller version of the original 25-member board).
And as part of the reorganisation, Phil Redmond, the creator of the Channel 4 soap Brookside, now has responsibility for the creative direction of 2008, with a pledge to respond faster to suggestions by smaller organisations.
He has put a positive spin on progress so far, praising what he calls the city's "disruptive culture" and likening the difficulties to a "good, old, chaotic Scouse wedding".
Through all the problems, museums and galleries have largely got on with managing capital projects and organising their programmes for 2008 (see highlights box).
Some of the original schemes have inevitably been abandoned: there will be no Museum of Comedy and Will Alsop's Fourth Grace, planned to sit alongside three other iconic buildings on Liverpool's waterfront, was ditched in 2004 because of rising costs.
It was to have included a new Museum of Liverpool, which is still going ahead, although the £65m project has encountered its own problems.
Last month NML terminated the contract of the scheme's Danish architect, 3XN, after disagreements over cost-cutting measures. 3XN have been replaced by Manchester-based AEW.
Other schemes have had easier rides. Next year will see the Bluecoat arts organisation move back into its home after a £12.5m redevelopment. The A-Foundation is extending its Greenland Street venue to increase its capacity to develop and exhibit contemporary art.
And the Open Eye Gallery, one of the UK's first dedicated photography spaces when it opened in 1977, is working on plans to move to a new site, located between Pier Head and Albert Dock on Mann Island, in 2009.
But these are some of the physical legacies that the Capital of Culture is helping to bring about. What else are cultural organisations looking for?
Andrea Nixon, the executive director of Tate Liverpool, says the year will not have been a success "if we have put on a programme that people came to see, but then they don't return for five years. We need to build audiences, regionally and internationally, and that will create a very different environment for the visual arts and culture in Liverpool to operate in."
Mike Stubbs, the director of FACT, Liverpool's centre for art and creative technology, also wants to attract new visitors: "As well as the opportunity to make and present brilliant art, it is a great chance to take art to new people and get people into the building who don't normally come. But this is just one year. In the arts in Liverpool we are collectively looking to the future, the next five to 10 years."
Beyond arts and culture, one of the city council's main aims is to improve perceptions of Liverpool by showcasing its vibrant cultural life. This was one of the main legacies of Glasgow's time as city of culture in 1990, along with the huge improvements in its cultural infrastructure (see the box on p26).
"Liverpool got into very severe economic and consequently social difficulty after the war," says David Fleming at NML. "What that led to was a growing image in the rest of Britain of a traumatised city with high unemployment, high crime rate, low quality of life, and low standard of living. I am very clear of what the potential of Liverpool being Capital of Culture is to help address the issue of a city that has a very serious image problem in the rest of Britain."
Liverpool City Council has commissioned a joint project by the University of Liverpool and the Liverpool John Moores University to evaluate the legacy of the capital of culture. The Impacts 08 research is creating a new model for looking at culture-led regeneration. The image of the city externally, internally and in the media is an important part of this.
Ruth Melville, a senior research fellow on the Impacts 08 team, says early research shows change is underway: "We would say there has been an effect already in terms of the views of Liverpool externally and the confidence and self-belief of people in the city.
"And in the media there has been a move away from stories about crime and other problems in Liverpool to stories of it being a place to invest and of rising house prices."
Whether Liverpool's time as the European Capital of Culture is a success will become clearer by the time the Museums Association holds its annual conference in the city in October next year. But after the cranes have finished their work and the focus has moved elsewhere, one thing seems certain - Liverpool will never be quite the same again.
The Glasgow experience
The city of culture concept was conceived in 1985 as a way of bringing the people in European Union countries closer together. Early holders of the title included affluent cities such as Florence and Paris, but it was poverty-stricken Glasgow in 1990 that was the first to use its European City of Culture (it was renamed European Capital of Culture in 1999) status to launch a culture-led regeneration.
"I think everyone who works in culture in the city agrees that it made a huge difference," says Mark O'Neill, the head of arts and museums at Culture and Sport Glasgow. "It was the first time anybody had done anything like this and the scale of the ambition was a first."
Since 1993 the council has spent millions of pounds improving museums. This has included the opening of the £6m Gallery of Modern Art in 1996 and the much-praised redevelopment of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, which cost £27.9m.
Next is the £74m transformation of the Museum of Transport into the Riverside Museum, which will open in 2010.
"The message is that you have to sustain that capital spend," says Steve Inch, the director of regeneration at Glasgow City Council.
"And although culture has been a huge part of the regeneration, it is only part of the strategy. It can't work on its own."
Liverpool's European Capital of Culture highlights
Out of Body: January-March
Open Eye Gallery
Liverpool's photography gallery is hosting a group show of works that focus on the human body. Artists include Valie Export and Douglas Gordon
Human Futures: 1 February-31 August
FACT
FACT, Liverpool's centre for art and creative technology, is devoting its 2008 programme to three exhibitions about how we think about our bodies and our environment in an increasingly digitally networked society. Orlan and Pipilotti Rist feature
Art in the Age of Steam: 18 April-10 August
Walker Art Gallery
National Museums Liverpool show organised in association with the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. Monet, Pissarro, Edward Hopper and others respond to the arrival of steam trains
Gustav Klimt: Painting, Design and Modern Life in Vienna 1900
30 May-31 August
Tate Liverpool
The first comprehensive UK show of Klimt will be a major draw
The Beat Goes On: 12 July-1 November 2009
World Museum Liverpool
A showcase for Merseyside's vibrant music scenes over the past 60 years
Liverpool Biennial: 20 September-30 November
Various venues
The theme of the fifth Liverpool Biennial international visual arts festival is based on the common Scouse saying "made up"
New buildings are shooting up everywhere, led by the £1bn Grosvenor project to create masses of space for leisure, hotel and retail uses.
But while places to eat, sleep and shop are important, it is culture that most people will be coming for next year. And the development of the cultural programme has been far less straightforward than the physical rebirth of the city through new architecture.
"The process has been very tortuous, almost inevitably because clearly it is not easy to structure and deliver a phenomenon where nobody really understands what it is you are supposed to be doing," says David Fleming, the director of National Museums Liverpool (NML).
"There is no model, no patent. So each time a city becomes a capital of culture it is trying to invent something on its own terms and this is what Liverpool is doing."
It is certainly true that many capital of culture cities have struggled in the years running up to the event.
"The context is that it is not a three-week festival, it is a one-off, year-long programme," says Fiona Gasper, the executive producer at the Liverpool Culture Company, the organisation set up by Liverpool City Council to deliver the programme.
"With an annual festival you have time to build an audience, but with a one-off event such as this it is about the future of the city, so we have to be really careful."
But while there are certainly challenges in creating such a wide-ranging programme, political infighting has not helped. The pair behind the city's bid to become capital of culture, Liberal Democrat council leader Mike Storey and city council chief executive David Henshaw, have been at loggerheads and both have stepped down.
"One of the characteristics in how this all works, and that includes the capital of culture, is the very sophisticated and complex politics of the place," says Fleming. "This is the city that at the height of Thatcherism went militant and described itself as the city that dared to fight.
"That is the politics with a big P; the politics with a small p is that it feels like a city where democracy has gone mad," Fleming continues.
"Everyone does genuinely feel they have a voice in the way this city works. Stick that with the complex and sophisticated politics, alongside regeneration, alongside the capital of culture and you have a really heady mix. That is an explanation why it has not been a smooth
process, as nothing has a smooth passage in Liverpool."
Organisational problems at the Liverpool Culture Company have made matters worse. Three executives have resigned since 2004, including the artistic director Robyn Archer, who went in July 2006, leaving a huge hole in the creative direction of the programme. The last-minute cancellation of the Mathew Street Musical Festival in August for health and safety reasons seemed another bad omen.
Despite all this, there is a feeling among those working in Liverpool's cultural sector that everything is going to be fine. This September the board of the Liverpool Culture Company was slimmed down to six members from 14 (itself a smaller version of the original 25-member board).
And as part of the reorganisation, Phil Redmond, the creator of the Channel 4 soap Brookside, now has responsibility for the creative direction of 2008, with a pledge to respond faster to suggestions by smaller organisations.
He has put a positive spin on progress so far, praising what he calls the city's "disruptive culture" and likening the difficulties to a "good, old, chaotic Scouse wedding".
Through all the problems, museums and galleries have largely got on with managing capital projects and organising their programmes for 2008 (see highlights box).
Some of the original schemes have inevitably been abandoned: there will be no Museum of Comedy and Will Alsop's Fourth Grace, planned to sit alongside three other iconic buildings on Liverpool's waterfront, was ditched in 2004 because of rising costs.
It was to have included a new Museum of Liverpool, which is still going ahead, although the £65m project has encountered its own problems.
Last month NML terminated the contract of the scheme's Danish architect, 3XN, after disagreements over cost-cutting measures. 3XN have been replaced by Manchester-based AEW.
Other schemes have had easier rides. Next year will see the Bluecoat arts organisation move back into its home after a £12.5m redevelopment. The A-Foundation is extending its Greenland Street venue to increase its capacity to develop and exhibit contemporary art.
And the Open Eye Gallery, one of the UK's first dedicated photography spaces when it opened in 1977, is working on plans to move to a new site, located between Pier Head and Albert Dock on Mann Island, in 2009.
But these are some of the physical legacies that the Capital of Culture is helping to bring about. What else are cultural organisations looking for?
Andrea Nixon, the executive director of Tate Liverpool, says the year will not have been a success "if we have put on a programme that people came to see, but then they don't return for five years. We need to build audiences, regionally and internationally, and that will create a very different environment for the visual arts and culture in Liverpool to operate in."
Mike Stubbs, the director of FACT, Liverpool's centre for art and creative technology, also wants to attract new visitors: "As well as the opportunity to make and present brilliant art, it is a great chance to take art to new people and get people into the building who don't normally come. But this is just one year. In the arts in Liverpool we are collectively looking to the future, the next five to 10 years."
Beyond arts and culture, one of the city council's main aims is to improve perceptions of Liverpool by showcasing its vibrant cultural life. This was one of the main legacies of Glasgow's time as city of culture in 1990, along with the huge improvements in its cultural infrastructure (see the box on p26).
"Liverpool got into very severe economic and consequently social difficulty after the war," says David Fleming at NML. "What that led to was a growing image in the rest of Britain of a traumatised city with high unemployment, high crime rate, low quality of life, and low standard of living. I am very clear of what the potential of Liverpool being Capital of Culture is to help address the issue of a city that has a very serious image problem in the rest of Britain."
Liverpool City Council has commissioned a joint project by the University of Liverpool and the Liverpool John Moores University to evaluate the legacy of the capital of culture. The Impacts 08 research is creating a new model for looking at culture-led regeneration. The image of the city externally, internally and in the media is an important part of this.
Ruth Melville, a senior research fellow on the Impacts 08 team, says early research shows change is underway: "We would say there has been an effect already in terms of the views of Liverpool externally and the confidence and self-belief of people in the city.
"And in the media there has been a move away from stories about crime and other problems in Liverpool to stories of it being a place to invest and of rising house prices."
Whether Liverpool's time as the European Capital of Culture is a success will become clearer by the time the Museums Association holds its annual conference in the city in October next year. But after the cranes have finished their work and the focus has moved elsewhere, one thing seems certain - Liverpool will never be quite the same again.
The Glasgow experience
The city of culture concept was conceived in 1985 as a way of bringing the people in European Union countries closer together. Early holders of the title included affluent cities such as Florence and Paris, but it was poverty-stricken Glasgow in 1990 that was the first to use its European City of Culture (it was renamed European Capital of Culture in 1999) status to launch a culture-led regeneration.
"I think everyone who works in culture in the city agrees that it made a huge difference," says Mark O'Neill, the head of arts and museums at Culture and Sport Glasgow. "It was the first time anybody had done anything like this and the scale of the ambition was a first."
Since 1993 the council has spent millions of pounds improving museums. This has included the opening of the £6m Gallery of Modern Art in 1996 and the much-praised redevelopment of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, which cost £27.9m.
Next is the £74m transformation of the Museum of Transport into the Riverside Museum, which will open in 2010.
"The message is that you have to sustain that capital spend," says Steve Inch, the director of regeneration at Glasgow City Council.
"And although culture has been a huge part of the regeneration, it is only part of the strategy. It can't work on its own."
Liverpool's European Capital of Culture highlights
Out of Body: January-March
Open Eye Gallery
Liverpool's photography gallery is hosting a group show of works that focus on the human body. Artists include Valie Export and Douglas Gordon
Human Futures: 1 February-31 August
FACT
FACT, Liverpool's centre for art and creative technology, is devoting its 2008 programme to three exhibitions about how we think about our bodies and our environment in an increasingly digitally networked society. Orlan and Pipilotti Rist feature
Art in the Age of Steam: 18 April-10 August
Walker Art Gallery
National Museums Liverpool show organised in association with the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. Monet, Pissarro, Edward Hopper and others respond to the arrival of steam trains
Gustav Klimt: Painting, Design and Modern Life in Vienna 1900
30 May-31 August
Tate Liverpool
The first comprehensive UK show of Klimt will be a major draw
The Beat Goes On: 12 July-1 November 2009
World Museum Liverpool
A showcase for Merseyside's vibrant music scenes over the past 60 years
Liverpool Biennial: 20 September-30 November
Various venues
The theme of the fifth Liverpool Biennial international visual arts festival is based on the common Scouse saying "made up"