It's fair to say that culture and Middlesbrough are not generally seen as close acquaintances, but when a new art gallery opens later this year, that could change, Nick Morrison reports.

GODFREY Worsdale was delighted to be able to put one man's anxieties to rest over the new art gallery rising from the ground in the centre of Middlesbrough. The caller's office overlooks the site and he had rung to point out that, far from being straight, the new building was going up at a bit of an angle.

"I said I was glad to hear that, because that was the idea," Mr Worsdale recalls. "But I said if he saw anything else he should let me know."

But allaying concerns over an art gallery intentionally built to lean over by one degree is not at the top of his list of priorities. There's the small matter of convincing the art world that a modern art gallery can succeed in the heart of industrial Teesside.

When it opens later this year, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art - which today's obsession with the unconventional dictates will be known as the determinedly lower-case mima - will have the task of both attracting sufficiently high quality art that it doesn't sink into obscurity, and persuading a sometimes sceptical public that a gallery in Middlesbrough can be worth visiting.

As the borough council's director of museums and galleries, and the first director of mima, Mr Worsdale is only too aware of the size of the challenge, but has not allowed that to hamper his ambitions.

"Middlesbrough has a character that everyone is familiar with, which is to do with its industrial heritage, and most people would guess that the reason it is most likely to be on the Ten O'Clock News would not be something to do with culture," he says.

"But that is an absolute cast iron reason why mima needs to happen in Middlesbrough. It is a great town with a great heritage, and we accept that it has a certain reputation, but it is our job to put ourselves up there, and it is my intention that the gallery will start to turn those assumptions around."

Despite these assumptions, mima's arrival has been long-awaited. Several attempts over the last 50 years to build a new gallery have all foundered, and it was only a combination of the finances becoming available, and the opening of the Baltic in Gateshead highlighting the artistic gap between Tyneside and Leeds, that the project finally became possible.

Work on the £19.2m building, designed by Dutchman Erik van Egeraat, began in July 2004, and the opening exhibition in the autumn promises to feature some of the biggest names in 20th century art, although details will only be revealed nearer the time. The hope is that this will not be a one-off, but will set the tone for the gallery's future.

"We want to create high quality exhibitions that will bring an art audience into the Tees Valley," says Mr Worsdale. "We want to do the best possible job wherever we are, and we happen to be in Middlesbrough doing it. There is no reason to be half-hearted in that respect."

And there's no doubt that he's aiming high. For the opening exhibition he went to galleries including Tate Modern asking to borrow pieces in their collection, and negotiations have been opened up with the Museum of Modern Art in New York. "People need to see that we're in at the top end," he says.

Despite its reputation, he says Middlesbrough has a distinguished art history, largely through the arts centre and the Cleveland Drawing Biennale, a leading international competition of the 1960s and 70s. And he likens his task to the work chairman Steve Gibson has done in putting Middlesbrough on the footballing map.

"I remember when Middlesbrough signed (Fabricio) Ravenelli, people said, 'What has he gone there for?', but I think good for them for being ambitious, and a couple of years later they're reaping the rewards," he says.

"Very much in our ambition is that mima is and will be known as a prestigious venue, and it is part of contributing to the impression people have of Middlesbrough, and I think the gallery can do that."

As well as showing works on loan from other galleries, mima will also provide a building to display some of the council's 3,000 works of art. And it will build its own collection, already acquiring work from a Turner short-listed artist. "We want to be regarded as one of those galleries at the forefront of modern art," he says.

There's also the issue of local artists, a potentially thorny problem for many galleries. If there are some who thought they could automatically claim a space on the walls by virtue of their location, they are in for a disappointment.

"Local artists are really important for any sensible gallery, we understand they are potentially great advocates for us and potentially a great audience, and they can work with us," says Mr Worsdale.

"But if a local artist walks through the door and says, 'I'm a local artist, can I have an exhibition?', the answer is going to be, 'Why?'. We will be looking for an artist who says something a bit different and is important and is making sense of current practice."

The building, in Victoria Square opposite the Town Hall, has more than just its tilt to recommend it. A massive stone curtain in the entrance hall appears to be held up by columns, but in fact is entirely supported from the ceiling, and while at first glance it appears to be smooth, closer inspection reveals a brickwork pattern.

The lofty first gallery is a ten metre cube, big enough for videos to be projected onto one wall and with a viewing platform for visitors to look down on people looking at the art. The main gallery is L-shaped, so the visitor doesn't see everything when they first walk in, and a sound gallery provides one of the country's few environments to hear audio art.

A roof gallery offers a rare view from the town of the Cleveland Hills, and as well as the obligatory caf, shop and education rooms, there are conservation studios and a 120-jet illuminated fountain in the grounds.

Comparisons with the Baltic are inevitable, although at 35,000sq ft, mima is considerably smaller, but Mr Worsdale believes the two galleries will complement each other. While the Baltic concentrates on contemporary art, mima's remit allows it to show virtually anything from 1900 onwards.

"A lot of people think Baltic's problem is its size, and to fill it with quality is very hard, but the beauty of a gallery concerned with 20th century art is while we can show contemporary art, we can also show art from the Victorian era," he says.

"One of the challenges is to make people realise there is a big difference between us and Baltic. Baltic has made its name and people travel to the North-East to see it and that is only going to help our cause. It would be more difficult for mima to bed itself in if Baltic didn't exist."

But if there are some who are still sceptical about the prospects of an art gallery in Middlesbrough, Mr Worsdale says the feeling within the town has been overwhelmingly positive.

"The mood is anticipation," he says. "I banked on a lot more scepticism and there are a lot of priorities to address in Middlesbrough, so I could imagine people wondering if it was the right thing to do to invest a lot of money in an art gallery.

"The jury is probably still out on that, and people will make up their own minds, but at the same time they seem willing to give it a chance."