please empty your brain below
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I pass by every day on a train into Victoria and have been saddened that the view of the power station has been obscured from almost all angles or, as dg pithily puts it "smothered by a fortress of residential development".
I got the chance to stand inside the hollowed out shell of the power station about 15 years ago. It was impressive then and must have been awe inspiring when in full operation as an electric cathedral.
Tunnel Bore | 25.03.17 - 7:32 a.m. | #
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I would not have been concerned if the old power station was removed. I cannot see the reason for keeping the old shell.
If part of the generating gear in one of the halls had been kept and it could be some sort of museum OK-like some steam museums- but as it has been gutted it is just a big pile of bricks and chimneys with no fires below!
Now it is staying I hope it finds a useful new function to justify the cost of it restoration.
Does seem daft to make the building a focal point of your new development and then more or less hide it from view by building around it.
John | 25.03.17 - 7:59 a.m. | #
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It is fortunate, not unfortunate, that those glazed conservatories face north. A south-facing conservatory would be uninhabitably hot for half of the year.
Mike Scott | 25.03.17 - 8:08 a.m. | #
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It's a redeveloped quarter of SW8 now, but it'll be part of SW11 when it opens. So many flats are being built here that there has been a recoding to transfer this part of SW8 to the larger SW11 postal sorting office on Lavender Hill. Given SW11 is the traditional 'Battersea' postcode, this also seems somehow appropriate.
David | Homepage | 25.03.17 - 9:21 a.m. | #
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Have you hacked the Circus West Village thingum? "Award winning organic gin from London's flagship boutique distilling group" Hilarious.
The development itself is not so amusing.
I look forward to walking the south Bank of the river, but this could have been achieved without this hideous development. Yes, I know these guys are the first to make the finances stack up, but it's grim.
Lorenzo | 25.03.17 - 9:22 a.m. | #
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Just more rubbish flats Londoners cannot afford.
Boxer | 25.03.17 - 9:27 a.m. | #
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Are the replacement chimneys shorter than the old ones? Or are chimneys getting shorter as I get older?...
Somehow they look out of balance to the building these days.
Catch the train from Clapham Junction pltforms 3 and 4 to Vauxhall and sit on the left hand side of the train and you get an impressive view of the scale of the redevlopment of that part of London including the new American embassy.
ap | 25.03.17 - 10:27 a.m. | #
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Swamping the power station with flats is the only way to pay for it all, although if you can't see it properly it stops being iconic, having said that, it may have been the 'derelict shell' era that enhanced its status.
If had access to stupid amounts of money, I might have bought it, put a roof on it, and just have a sofa, fridge and a large T.V. inside - then just waft by sometimes to binge watch something on Netflix.
Still anon | 25.03.17 - 11:33 a.m. | #
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@Boxer. How cynical. World criminals have to launder their money somewhere and we welcome them with open arms. See the article at the back of the latest Private Eye.
Sad that my son still can't afford anything, but we mustn't let riff-raff get in the way of free enterprise!
Chris | 25.03.17 - 11:36 a.m. | #
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Just checked. There are 6 properties (all studios) available for 500,000 quid or under. The cheapest is 420 square feet for 400,000 smackers.....
My son won't be moving to South Chelsea I feel.
Chris | 25.03.17 - 11:42 a.m. | #
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My minor connection to the Battersea Power Station dates back to 1968 when as a lowly US Navy ensign one of my duties was to escort a truck loaded with large paper bags full of classified documents to be burned in one of the giant infernos. I guess our materials were too hot to handle because they eventually disallowed the practice as it upset the temperature regulation of the furnace we threw the bags into.
My assignment was to 7 North Audley which I believe has also been overtaken by progress.
Larry | 25.03.17 - 3:29 p.m. | #
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ap at 10:27 The claim is that the replacement chimneys will be "visually identical" [from here: https://www.batterseapowerstation.co.uk/#!/go/view/app/chimney?view=updates ]
Hmm. Identical is an absolute.....
Gordon | 25.03.17 - 6:54 p.m. | #
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Excellent article.
Mark | 25.03.17 - 7:09 p.m. | #
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What a sad pile of capitalist shite they're making out of this modernist icon.
Remember Thatcher's pledge to open it as an amusement park by 1990?
http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107009
That went well.
drD | Homepage | 25.03.17 - 9:03 p.m. | #
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We must destroy the building to save it...
This is what the chimneys looked like in 2009. The new ones haven't been painted yet so I do think they will look "identical". With the exception of one will the viewing platform. I imagine that'll wreck the symmetry a bit.
Yes, I do wonder what's going into that deep excavation. This is swampy ground-John Broome told me the power station was on a raft foundation-which means if this *is* an underground space of some sort, it will need to be intensively tanked, repeatedly.
HoosierSands | Homepage | 26.03.17 - 7:42 a.m. | #
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It is sad that the iconic view from the Victoria trains has been lost - this is a view I grew up with, when I came into London from Kent where I lived, it is one of the enduring symbols of London to me.
At least the river view is still present. But the building between the power station and the railway line are simply hideous and dominating. Part of me knows it's the cost of inevitable progress*, with decisions made by those far higher and richer than most Londoners will ever be.
* clearly not social progress, just pure capitalistic progress - which is why these areas have no soul, and often non-resident residents.
Sykobee | 26.03.17 - 11:21 p.m. | #
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