Battersea Power Station

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Battersea Power Station viewed from the north bank of the River Thames at Pimlico.

Battersea Power Station in London is a defunct power station that was the first in a series of large coal-fired electrical generating facilities set up in England as part of the National Grid power distribution system then being introduced. The first part of the structure was built in 1939, and the station ceased electricity-generation in 1983. Since then the site has remained largely unused, with numerous failed redevelopment plans from successive site owners. The building is the largest brick-built structure in Europe and is notable for its original and lavish Art Deco fittings and decor. The station famously appears in The Beatles' 1965 Help! movie (with a graphic identifying it as "a famous power station") and on the cover art of Pink Floyd's 1977 album Animals.

The building is Grade II* listed^[1], and the condition was described as "very bad" by English Heritage, who have included it on their Buildings at Risk Register. The site has been owned by Irish company Real Estate Opportunities (REO) since November 2006, after they purchased it for £400 million.^[2]

1 Background
2 Architecture
3 District heating scheme
4 End of operation
5 Redevelopment
- 5.1 Opposition
6 Cultural impact
7 See also
8 References
9 External links

[edit] Background

During the 1930s electricity was supplied by municipal undertakings - small companies that built stations dedicated to a single industry or group of factories and sold any excess power to the public.

Due to differing standards of voltage and frequency, Parliament decided that the power grid should be a single system under public ownership. This sparked a storm of protest from those who thought that the government should not be involved and it would be another 30 years before nationalisation was completed.

Meanwhile, several private power companies reacted to the proposals by forming the London Power Company in 1925. Their plan was to build a smaller number of very large stations and sell the power to anyone who wanted it. Their first power station was planned for the Battersea area on the south bank of the River Thames in London.

[edit] Architecture

This sparked protests from those who felt the building was too large and would be an eyesore, and from those who were worried about the pollution. The company addressed the former by hiring Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, a noted architect and industrial designer (also famous for the design of the red telephone box, of Liverpool Cathedral and also another London power station, Bankside, which now houses the Tate Modern art gallery).

The resulting design is a steel-framed building with brickwork hung from the outside, similar to the skyscrapers being built in the US at the time. Construction, which was carried out by John Mowlem & Co, started in 1929 and was completed by 1939. Most of the electrical equipment including the steam turbogenerators was supplied by the Metropolitan Vickers company. The original power station had a single long hall with a chimney at either end. From 1953 to 1955 a second Station B, identical from the outside, was constructed alongside the original, which then became known as Station A. This gave the station its familiar four-chimney layout. Far from being an eyesore, the station has since become one of London's most famous landmarks and is generally loved.

The power station was the site of a fire on April 20, 1964, which caused power failures throughout London including at the BBC Television Centre, which was slated to launch BBC Two that night. The launch was delayed until the following day at 11am.

[edit] District heating scheme

After the end of the Second World War the London Power Company took the opportunity to introduce a new innovation - a district heating scheme better known now as Cogeneration. Some 11,000 people benefitted from the scheme which provided hot water and central heating to the newly redeveloped areas within Pimlico.

[edit] End of operation

When it first opened, the station had a 105 megawatt steam turbine. At the time, this was the largest in Europe. After World War II this was enlarged to approximately 500 MW. In the 1950s, 60 MW was considered to be 'large' for UK stations. Power stations' output continued to grow and this factor, coupled with increased operating costs (Battersea required flue gas cleaning) led to its demise. In 1975 Station A (by then quite out of date) was shut down, with rumours that Station B would soon follow. Intense public pressure mounted to save the buildings, notably Station A's Art Deco interior. In 1980 the station was declared a heritage site, and in 1983 production at Station B ended.

[edit] Redevelopment

Inside Battersea Power Station, 2006

There have been several projects to redevelop the Power Station.

A 1984 competition for redesign of the site was won by a consortium including Alton Towers Limited, who proposed an indoor theme park, which received planning approval in 1986. Work in converting the site was begun but the project was halted due to lack of funding in 1989, leaving huge holes in the roof through which machinery had been removed from the building.

In 1993, development company Parkview International purchased the outstanding loans from the banks and following resolution of creditors claims, acquired the freehold title in May 1996. The company received unencumbered possession of the site in April 2003. Having purchased the site, Parkview started work on a £1.1bn project to restore the building and to redevelop the 38 acre site in one of the largest privately-owned development projects in the UK.

Parkview's project plan, called The Power Station, proposed to develop restaurants, retail, cinemas and other cultural and commercial offerings within the existing building. In addition, they proposed new buildings comprising two hotels, a theatre, flats, offices, showrooms and a £26m scheme to modernise and upgrade nearby Battersea Park railway station. The proposal included plans to expand the 15 hectare (38 acre) site along the bank of the River Thames to include two hotels, a conference centre, an event auditorium and about 700 residential units. The design for the scheme was by Grimshaws Architects and Buro Happold.

An independent environmental impact assessment conducted by Arup had forecast that the project would be responsible for creating some 6,000 (full time equivalent) new jobs and that nearly 3,500 of these would go to people living within the locality. At the launch of a recruitment office in July 2005, the then-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions David Blunkett said, "this development is good news for the people of East Battersea, indeed the whole of London."

The ministers Gordon Brown, Ruth Kelly and Bill Rammell visited the Power Station in March 2006 to launch a joint venture between Parkview, their construction manager Bovis Lend Lease, the Learning and Skills Council, Lambeth College and Wandsworth Council to provide onsite training for students learning building skills. Speaking at the event, Gordon Brown said “this is exactly the sort of project that we want to see more of - one which develops the skills of young people and adults, and where employers are investing in their workforces. I look forward to visiting you all in a few years time when this project is complete".

On 13 October 2005, Parkview, English Heritage and the London Borough of Wandsworth claimed that the chimneys are structurally unsound and irreparable, and the Council approved a plan to demolish and rebuild the chimneys. News of this plan was met with controversy, with some commentators suggesting that Parkview might end up not replacing the chimneys after demolition. A local opposition group commissioned an alternative engineers' report which claimed that the existing chimneys could be repaired. In response, Parkview claimed to have given a legally binding undertaking to the Council to provide certainty that the chimneys will be replaced like-for-like in accordance with the requirements of English Heritage and the planning authorities. However, campaigners suggested that as Parkview was registered in the British Virgin Islands, the council would not be able to enforce the legal agreement. Further concerns were raised when the Council's Borough Solicitor, when questioned by the Council's planning applications committee members, was not able to give an assurance that a watertight legal agreement to rebuild the chimneys could be made with an offshore company.

On 30 November 2006, it was announced that Real Estate Opportunities, led by Irish businessmen Richard Barrett and Johnny Ronan of Treasury Holdings, had purchased Battersea Power Station and the surrounding land for €595m. It was initially unclear what impact this transaction would have on the redevelopment plans.^[3]. However, REO subsequently announced that the previous plan by Parkview had been dropped and that they had appointed the practice of Uruguayan-born architect Rafael Viñoly, of New York as the new master planner for the site. The engineers, Buro Happold, were retained on the design team.

Battersea Power Station, seen from a tourist boat on the River Thames

[edit] Opposition

The Battersea Power Station Community Group campaigned against the Parkview plan, and argued for an alternative community-based scheme to be drawn up. The Group was sceptical that Parkview would deliver its redevelopment project and doubted that the benefits claimed for the scheme, such as improved local transport, new jobs, large public spaces and the opening up of the riverside, would materialise. The group described the plans as "a deeply unattractive project that has no affordable housing anywhere on the 38 acre site, no decent jobs for local people and no credible public transport strategy". The group also said "this is just the last in a long line of planning applications from Parkview going back over 10 years that have gone nowhere. We fear that Parkview is merely proposing unrealisable projects while the value of the land increases and the power station crumbles."^[4]

Conversely, the Battersea Power Station Community Forum, which represents the interests of local organisations including elected offices, the Council, residents associations, places of worship, educational establishments, business and amenity groups, enthusiastically supported Parkview’s plans for regeneration. The Forum was established by Parkview, and local people who were critical of Parkview's lack of progress and neglect of the listed building were not allowed to attend.^{[citation needed]}.

In 2002, members of the Battersea Power Station Community Group set up Battersea Power Station Company Ltd, a development trust, with the aim of promoting conservation and redevelopment of the site. The Company achieved charitable status in April 2005. In February 2007, the company proposed that the power station should be the venue for the proposed United Kingdom Energy Technologies Institute, which is being established by the government to research new technologies for combating climate change. The directors of the Company suggested that Battersea Power Station would be an apt location for the new Institute.

[edit] Cultural impact

Battersea Power Station has been pictured on several album covers by rock and pop groups. Most notably, it was featured on the cover of Pink Floyd's 1977 album, Animals, with the group's inflatable pink pig floating above the station. The inflatable pig seen tethered to the power station reportedly "broke loose" from its moorings and veered into the flight path of Heathrow Airport before landing somewhere in Kent.^[5] On subsequent photo shoots, sharpshooters were hired to shoot it down if it went astray. These problems led to there being no usable single photo of the pig above the building, and the sleeve is actually a composite image.

The station can also be seen on The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld, on the back cover of Les Claypool's Frog Brigade's Live Frogs Set 2 (a complete cover of Pink Floyd's Animals), in the booklet art for The Who's 1973 album, Quadrophenia and on the cover of London Elektricity's Power Ballads album. It was used in 2001 as the background art for the cover of the Petula Clark boxed set, Meet Me in Battersea Park. It also appears on the cover of Jan Hammer's 12" single of "The Runner (marathon mix)". The photograph on the sleeve of Quark, Strangeness and Charm by Hawkwind is of the power station's control room. The station also appears in the 1997 music video by American pop band Hanson for the song "Where's the Love".

The Jam shot their promotional video for the song "News Of The World" on the roof of the power station. Photos from the shoot featuring the station also appear on the sleeve of the Snap! compilation.

The station was used as a setting in Alfred Hitchcock's 1936 film, Sabotage. It appeared for a moment in the British Doctor Who television science fiction series in The Dalek Invasion of Earth in 1964, which saw the station in the 22nd century, having been converted to a nuclear facility. It appeared again in the 2006 Doctor Who episodes "Rise of the Cybermen" and "The Age of Steel" as the base to which Londoners are drawn to be converted into Cybermen. It appeared briefly in The Beatles' 1965 film Help!, and many years later, the interior was seen in the "Find The Fish" segment of Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. Battersea Power Station was also used as the façade for the Ministry of Love in Michael Radford's 1984 film of George Orwell's novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. The streets surrounding the Power Station and its interior were also used in "Cry Havoc", a 1991 episode of the long running police drama, The Bill. In May 2007, Battersea Power Station played a central role in an episode of the BBC TV series New Tricks.

The station stood in for an Eastern European military camp in the MacGyver TV movie, The Lost Treasure of Atlantis, and it appeared briefly in the background of an episode of the ABC television series Lost entitled "Fire and Water", sporting an identifying sign: "Widmore Construction", an important organisation in the Lost mythos. The building was used as inspiration for the "Advanced Power Plant" structure in the PC game Command & Conquer: Red Alert. It was rented by Bruce Dickinson to be a film location of three of his videos, but only appeared in one, "Man Of Sorrows", in 1999.

In recent years, the building has occasionally played host to concerts and to performances by the Cirque du Soleil (in a nearby marquee). In Ian McKellen's film of Shakespeare's Richard III, the derelict power station surreally stands in for Bosworth Field in Richard's final battle scene.

During Pink Floyd's 2005 Live 8 performance, during the song "Money", Battersea was briefly shown when the camera panned out away from the stage.

In Alfonso Cuarón's 2006 film, Children of Men, the station appears rebuilt as the "Ark Of Art"; the film, set in 2027, imagines a world where sudden universal infertility has doomed the human race to extinction. The resulting global chaos leaves Britain as one of the few functioning societies on Earth (albeit one held together with fascist brutality). The Power Station contains art treasures salvaged from less stable nations and preserved for a "posterity" that's not coming, as the film's protagonist (Clive Owen) points out to the curator, his cousin (Danny Huston) as they dine beneath the shattered and rebuilt Michaelangelo's David. An inflatable pig is tethered to the exterior of the building, a reference to the Animals album cover.

Battersea Power Station stands as the hideout of Colonel Olrik, in the French comic Menaces sur l' empire by Pierre Veys and Nicolas Barral (DARGAUD 2005), a parody of the classic comic series of Edgard P. Jacobs' Blake and Mortimer.

Photographer Vera Lutter used the station in several pieces of her work. She created the photographs by turning storage containers into giant pinhole cameras and placing them in front of the building for several days.

In October 2007, the power station was used as a filming location for the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight.^[6]

In December 2007, an inflatable cartoon pig was placed above the station, in both a tribute to the Pink Floyd cover and a promotion for the DVD release of The Simpsons Movie.^[7]