Battersea Power Station in London unveils the newly restored Control Room A
batterseapowerstation.co.uk
Battersea Power Station in London unveils the newly restored Control Room A
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Re: Battersea Power Station in London unveils the newly restored Control Room A
#2With the beautiful art deco ceiling and walls, it almost feels more like a palatial monument to the power of electricity, rather than a mere control room. Imagine if we strove to make our industrial spaces as attractive nowadays! Modern control rooms are still breathtaking, but more through the sheer volume of stuff - blinking lights, giant monitors, diagrams, and so on - than through decoration.
Re: Battersea Power Station in London unveils the newly restored Control Room A
#3With the beautiful art deco ceiling and walls, it almost feels more like a palatial monument to the power of electricity, rather than a mere control room. Imagine if we strove to make our industrial spaces as attractive nowadays! Modern control rooms are still breathtaking, but more through the sheer volume of stuff - blinking lights, giant monitors, diagrams, and so on - than through decoration.
Scott Alexander wrote an interesting post on this:
Re: Battersea Power Station in London unveils the newly restored Control Room A
#4Battersea is the location for the start of one of my favorite books from childhood, The Borribles[0]. It has lived in my imagination all these years. Now if I ever get over there I guess I'll have something to go see. From what I heard in the old days, it was pretty rough.
Re: Battersea Power Station in London unveils the newly restored Control Room A
#5A segment from the BBC documentary "The Secret Life of the National Grid" talking about Battersea Power Station: https://youtu.be/vtixR7w7S0E?t=601
Re: Battersea Power Station in London unveils the newly restored Control Room A
#6I grew up and live a short 5 minute walk from Battersea Power Station - I have some fond memories of playing in the (admittedly quite unsafe) industrial estate around that area. It's quite sad to see what it's become now; as much as I support the development of the local area, they had to add a bunch of shopping outlets, restaurants, and very expensive boutique outlets. It's completely antithetical to the local identity of the area - literally opposite a council estate. The area is essentially unaffordable and has transformed into a sort of camden/southwark esque hellscape of bourgeois gentrification. Everyone I know has been either priced out, or will be in the next couple of years. I anticipate having to move due to developers wanting to demolish this council estate - I get letters every day asking about private purchasing agreements.
Re: Battersea Power Station in London unveils the newly restored Control Room A
#7I grew up and live a short 5 minute walk from Battersea Power Station - I have some fond memories of playing in the (admittedly quite unsafe) industrial estate around that area. It's quite sad to see what it's become now; as much as I support the development of the local area, they had to add a bunch of shopping outlets, restaurants, and very expensive boutique outlets. It's completely antithetical to the local ident…
This seems to be the case across much of London, sadly.
'Synthetic' is the word that comes to mind whenever I see these developments. Frankly, as much as the effort impresses me from a technical point, I'm content enough only ever seeing it from afar when I pass vaguely nearby on a train going south. I suspect I'll never actually walk through it.
Having 'argued' with people on HN about this sort of thing beforehand, I know that my view isn't exactly unanimous, so clearly some people like this sort of 'development'.
Re: Battersea Power Station in London unveils the newly restored Control Room A
#8I grew up and live a short 5 minute walk from Battersea Power Station - I have some fond memories of playing in the (admittedly quite unsafe) industrial estate around that area. It's quite sad to see what it's become now; as much as I support the development of the local area, they had to add a bunch of shopping outlets, restaurants, and very expensive boutique outlets. It's completely antithetical to the local ident…
This seems to be the case across much of London, sadly. 'Synthetic' is the word that comes to mind whenever I see these developments. Frankly, as much as the effort impresses me from a technical point, I'm content enough only ever seeing it from afar when I pass vaguely nearby on a train going south. I suspect I'll never actually walk through it. Having 'argued' with people on HN about this sort of thing beforehand,…
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Re: Battersea Power Station in London unveils the newly restored Control Room A
#9"Art Deco style was of the moment with Control Room A boasting teak parquet flooring laid in a herringbone pattern and walls tiled in grey Italian marble offset by black Belgian marble detailing through the room, matched by a gold painted coffered glass ceiling."
this was a power station
what happened
Re: Battersea Power Station in London unveils the newly restored Control Room A
#10With the beautiful art deco ceiling and walls, it almost feels more like a palatial monument to the power of electricity, rather than a mere control room. Imagine if we strove to make our industrial spaces as attractive nowadays! Modern control rooms are still breathtaking, but more through the sheer volume of stuff - blinking lights, giant monitors, diagrams, and so on - than through decoration.
The Victorians had a similarly grand take on public utility buildings, especially pump houses for water/sewage works. Probably the best example is Crossness Pumping Station [1]. The interior is stunning; this [2] is one image from the Wikipedia page/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossness_Pumping_Station
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Crossness_Pumping_Station...
