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Battersea Power Station in London unveils the newly restored Control Room A
- camtarn 4y agoWith 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.
- biofox 4y agoScott Alexander wrote an interesting post on this: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/whither-tartaria https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/whither-tartaria
- samizdis 4y agoThe 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossness_Pumping_Station [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Crossness_Pumping_Station,_Belvedere,_Kent_-_geograph-2280114-by-Christine-Matthews.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Crossness_Pumping_Station...
- Arrath 4y agoWow that is gorgeous.
- camtarn 4y agoWow! Absolutely gorgeous. I wonder what the motivation was for such over-the-top decoration? Lots of money sloshing around and a desire to make things beautiful for beauty's sake? Individual or governmental prestige?
- doovd 4y agoReminds me of metro stations in Moscow: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2015/oct/31/moscows-metro-stations-in-pictures https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2015/oct/31...
- jesterpm 4y agoI assumed that the gap between the cost to do the bare minimum and the cost to do some elaborate was smaller at the time. If you're already laying each brick by hand, it seems like the incremental cost to work a pattern into the bricks would be small compared to modern (bland) poured-concrete buildings, where we lay a whole floor in one go. Likewise in other trades. We invented machines to build large amounts of simple things cheaply, so we designed simpler things.
- noir_lord 4y ago> I wonder what the motivation was for such over-the-top decoration? Lots of money sloshing around and a desire to make things beautiful for beauty's sake? Individual or governmental prestige? The Victorians saw engineering prowess as a statement of intent to the world, combine that with this https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2015/12/17/how-austerity-destroyed-the-british-empire/#jp-carousel-2578 https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2015/12/17/how-austerity-dest... (British empire from 1830 to 1880 accounted for half of global wealth and approx 25% of landmass) and you could do incredible things. Lots of victorian infrastructure was built/over built so well we still use some of it now (London's sewer system is 2000 kilometers and brick built) - it was often seen as a legacy for the future as well.
- Waterluvian 4y agoI can hear todays taxpayers screaming. I wish we could spend the extra money and build things with real love.
- blhack 4y agoI don’t think it’s lack of money.
- kikoreis 4y agothis is absolutely stunning
- Animats 4y agoCheck out the headquarters of the Niagara Mohawk Power Company in Syracuse, NY. That is one of the best pieces of art deco architecture in the world. Usually art deco is somewhat minimalist, but Niagara Mohawk went over the top on decoration and lighting. The building is still in use and was recently renovated.
- BoxOfRain 4y agoThe Elan Valley in Wales is quite something too, there's dams with real thought into their aesthetics whereas now we'd get a horrible functional concrete monolith with literally zero thought put into how it fits into the landscape as long as the money flowed in.
- jl6 4y agoI find data centers to be attractive in a functional sense (and some are even “decorated” via color coding). Maybe functional is just our age’s style.
- bogantech 4y agoThe style of our time is bland inoffensive crap
- BoxOfRain 4y agoTo be fair there's probably a lot of bland inoffensive crap that's been demolished without tears shed over the years. Having said that, I've lived in Victorian houses in parts of the country that minimalist decorators haven't managed to get their paws on and even the small ones are more generous with ornamentation than a modern new build. I hate how modern houses might as well be glorified shipping containers they're so dull and functional, the Victorians knew the benefits of an arch and the odd bit of decorative carving.
- TomWhitwell 4y agoHere’s a 1960s British power station control room - a different (‘space age’) aesthetic but still very much a designed space intended to impress: https://www.powerstations.uk/ferrybridge-c-control-room/ https://www.powerstations.uk/ferrybridge-c-control-room/
- mftb 4y agoBattersea 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. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Borrible_Trilogy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Borrible_Trilogy
- scrlk 4y agoA segment from the BBC documentary "The Secret Life of the National Grid" talking about Battersea Power Station: https://youtu.be/vtixR7w7S0E?t=601 https://youtu.be/vtixR7w7S0E?t=601
- ccity88 4y agoI 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.
- detritus 4y agoThis 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'.
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- 202206241203 4y agoIn a second-world country, they would just demolish the building and maybe sell some of the control room knobs on e-bay. It might be as good as it gets in terms of involving private capital. I personally think that mid-century technological artefacts are underappreciated.
- SoftTalker 4y agoYes I love this era of technology. Just look at the photo of the control room. It feels like it's really scaled to be usable by humans. The large dials, levers and switches, all styled artistically as well as functionally. The natural light, marble walls, all the detail in the ceiling, floor, and woodwork. It looks like a very comfortable room to be in. Compare to the more modern sterile industrial control rooms, windowless, cold, everything run on screens and keyboards, no sense of a connection with the massive machinery being operated.
- recursivedoubts 4y ago"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
- semi-extrinsic 4y agoThere is a (IMO quite funny) conspiracy theory that there was a massive disaster at a leading architecture and design conference some time in the 1930s, such that almost everyone who knew how to make beautiful things died, and nowadays we actually can't design and build beautiful buildings anymore, it's all ugly modernist stuff.
- mortenjorck 4y agoThe funny thing is, there are still plenty of beautiful modernist buildings from the 1940s and beyond (look at some of Mies' 1960s office towers, for instance), and yet the idea that a power plant could or should have that level of care and quality put into it somehow fell (far) out of favor. Imagine a modern power plant control room with a look somewhere between an Apple store and the Parks' home in Parasite. This is what they took from you!
- myself248 4y agoI've been watching a lot of Proper People urbex videos on YouTube, and they go out of their way to recognize the design that went into ordinary places, back when those places were somewhat extraordinary. You see, in the 1930s, electric power _was_ glamorous, even its generation. The idea of a municipal utility _serving the public_ was a big deal. All the modern miracles that enabled dense cities to grow upward, electric water pumps and elevators and inter-office telephones, were shiny and new and worth celebrating. So, celebrate they did. Telephone central offices built in the 1920s and 30s are cathedrals to the tamed electron, with ornate Art-Deco carvings and stone arches and tile inlay adorning their entrances. I've had the privilege (yes!) of working in quite a number of them, and while the asbestos precautions are a hassle sometimes, there is a palpable feeling, even a century later, of showing up to work somewhere respectable. Proud. Exalted.
- smm11 4y agoWhich switch controls the pig?
- s3ctor8 4y ago> Battersea Power Station has today unveiled the first images of its newly restored Control Room A. Where are the images? All I can see (on mobile) is the one at the top of the article. Am I missing something? Have I forgotten how to use the Internet?
- jaygreco 4y agoMy thought exactly! At least on mobile, it kind of defeats the purpose of the unveiling if there are no images to see…
- dublin 4y agoI'm on desktop (Firefox) and the top image is the only one I see, too - I spent a minute or so hunting to see if they were hiding somewhere, to no avail...
- ChrisClark 4y agoEven on desktop, there is only the header image.
- liketochill 4y agoI wonder if my pihole is blocking them
- whylo 4y agoThey have some more on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BatterseaPwrStn/status/1542054272682057728 https://twitter.com/BatterseaPwrStn/status/15420542726820577... Weird they didn't include them in the article
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- TylerE 4y agoFor non UK readers, Battersea Power Station is the building on the cover of Pink Floyd's album Animals
- implements 4y agoAlso features as a government museum building in “Children of Men” (run by the protagonist’s cousin): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDEFgX-uFZc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDEFgX-uFZc The floating pig makes a couple of appearances.
- Rodeoclash 4y agoHere's a better quality video :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJO0n6kvPRU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJO0n6kvPRU
- brandall10 4y agoFunny thing, this is the only reason I'm aware of this building, as a non-UK reader.
- InCityDreams 4y ago...an awful lot of non-London people aren't aware/ still don't care. The discussions on gentrification resound throughout the country, though. Andcthe world, too, it would appear.
- dtgriscom 4y ago... minus the pig.
- unpythonic 4y agoAfter all, they're pigs on the wing. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/79160/time-pink-floyds-giant-inflatable-pig-floated-away https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/79160/time-pink-floyds-g...
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- londons_explore 4y agoThe circuit diagrams above the control panels appear to be nonsensical... Do they use some notation I'm unfamiliar with, or are they some 'artists impression' by a non-technical artist? If the latter, I'm really disappointed. 80 year old steam systems and generators are understandable by anyone doing high school physics, and we really shouldn't be making museum pieces that have made-up nonsense to try and make things impossible to understand.
- dtgriscom 4y agoI'm 99% sure they're real. They don't represent transistors and resistors; they're transformers, generators, switches, etc. Would love to get a technical tour, though.
- blueflow 4y agoIts common to make up some other diagram systems for specific usecases.
- djaychela 4y agoThe article says that Lucas UK was part of the restoration team. I'd be suprised if they were just making things up to look nice - and while they don't make any sense to me in terms of normal circuit diagrams, it's quite possible they are using non-standard (or probably now extinct) notation.
- ceejayoz 4y agoYou can see the same diagrams in the pre-restoration photos (example: https://londonist.com/2013/02/panorama-battersea-power-station-control-room-a https://londonist.com/2013/02/panorama-battersea-power-stati...). They won't have made any modifications from the original state if they can avoid it.
- myself248 4y ago"Single line diagram" is common in utility power, because the electricity itself is 3-phase so drawing individual conductors and components would clutter the diagram with information not needed at a high level. Many discrete components are omitted as well; the idea is to give the operators an immediately-comprehensible sense of how much power is flowing where, and where the measurement and interruption points are. Little more is needed at that stage.
- blueflow 4y agoOh, this is the 200 energy power plant from Red Alert!
- dtgriscom 4y agoHere's the image used as a header on that page; there's a lot more than what the web designer decided to show. https://cdn.batterseapowerstation.co.uk/_default_upload_bucket/image-thumb__4983__web-optimised/Control%20Room%20A%20-%20credit%20James%20Parsons%20(2).jpeg https://cdn.batterseapowerstation.co.uk/_default_upload_buck...
- belter 4y agoIt's a thing of beauty. I hope they play Pink Floyd during the visits... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animals_%28Pink_Floyd_album%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animals_%28Pink_Floyd_album%29
- WalterBright 4y agoSaved for wallpaper! My favorite is the Apollo mission control room, with all the custom made consoles in it covered with knobs, switches, lamps, and weird displays.
- robocat 4y agoHere’s some 2015 photos from an urban explorer: https://adamxphotos.com/2016/03/20/explore-134-battersea-power-station-control-room-a-some-time-in-2015/ https://adamxphotos.com/2016/03/20/explore-134-battersea-pow...
- WalterBright 4y agoToo bad that too-clever site caused Chrome to crash. :-(
- klelatti 4y agoThese are great - thanks for sharing. One nugget is the amount of water boiled each day - 160 million gallons - an incredible number!
- dayofthedaleks 4y agoThe photographer Will Pearson documented Control Room A several years ago with a 360 camera [0]. Click 'Launch Project' for panorama. Control Room B is basically made of Cybermen [1]. [0] https://www.willpearson.co.uk/battersea-power-station-control-room/ https://www.willpearson.co.uk/battersea-power-station-contro... [1] https://www.flickr.com/photos/liamch/4222346877 https://www.flickr.com/photos/liamch/4222346877
- PeterStuer 4y agoDirect link to explore the image in detail https://cdn.batterseapowerstation.co.uk/_default_upload_bucket/image-thumb__4983__web-optimised/Control%20Room%20A%20-%20credit%20James%20Parsons%20(2).jpeg https://cdn.batterseapowerstation.co.uk/_default_upload_buck...
- aliswe 4y agois it my mobile phone or are there no images whatsoever in this article?