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With 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. Imagi

With 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 ago
Scott Alexander wrote an interesting post on this: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/whither-tartaria https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/whither-tartaria
samizdis 4y ago
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 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 ago
  Wow that is gorgeous.
- camtarn 4y ago
  Wow! 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 ago
    Reminds 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 ago
    I 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 ago
  I can hear todays taxpayers screaming. I wish we could spend the extra money and build things with real love.
  - blhack 4y ago
    I don’t think it’s lack of money.
- kikoreis 4y ago
  this is absolutely stunning
- Animats 4y ago
  Check 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 ago
  The 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 ago
I 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 ago
  The style of our time is bland inoffensive crap
  - BoxOfRain 4y ago
    To 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 ago
Here’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/

biofox 4y ago

Scott Alexander wrote an interesting post on this: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/whither-tartaria https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/whither-tartaria

samizdis 4y ago

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 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 ago
Wow that is gorgeous.
camtarn 4y ago
Wow! 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 ago
  Reminds 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 ago
  I 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 ago
I can hear todays taxpayers screaming. I wish we could spend the extra money and build things with real love.
- blhack 4y ago
  I don’t think it’s lack of money.
kikoreis 4y ago
this is absolutely stunning
Animats 4y ago
Check 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 ago
The 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 ago

I 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 ago
The style of our time is bland inoffensive crap
- BoxOfRain 4y ago
  To 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 ago

Here’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/