- cross-posted to:
- photography@fedia.io
- photography@fedia.io
- cross-posted to:
- photography@fedia.io
- photography@fedia.io
Battersea Power Station, London, 2024.
All the pixels, but none of the flying pigs, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/54079042655
#photography
London’s Battersea Power Station, built as two nearly-identical halves completed in 1935 and 1955, respectively, was originally a coal-fired electrical generating plant. It was decommissioned in 1983. After being idle for nearly 40 years, the plant has been re-developed as retail space and commercial offices, opened in 2022. Along with the Tate Modern, it gives London a second striking example of large-scale adaptive reuse of an obsolete, but still handsome, power station.
The power station has long been an iconic landmark on the south bank of the Thames, distinctive for its four prominent smokestacks (two for each of its two separate generating facilities) and industrial art deco architecture. Perhaps most famously, it featured in the cover art for Pink Floyd’s 1977 “Animals” album, with one of London’s (sadly now extinct) giant flying pigs captured hovering near the smokestacks.
This is another image in my “slightly better versions of the pictures of local attractions you might find decorating the walls of inexpensive hotel rooms” series.
@mattblaze@federate.social The story goes that one of the giant pigs broke free of it’s tether and landed up (deflated) the worse for wear in a farmer’s field. I can only imagine the conversation when the farmer reported it to the local constabulary. “I’ve found a Giant Pig in my field” could so easily be misinterpreted in more ways than one.
@mattblaze@federate.social also used as the set for this bit from Monty Python’s Meaning of Life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QanC47gRBaE
@mattblaze@federate.social IIRC two of the chimneys are entirely fake, there purely to balance the look of the other two… Can’t remember where I read that though.
@mattblaze@federate.social
that is cool!
bankside power station: transitioned from coal and oil power production to zero-emission cultural power production.
battersea power station: transitioned from coal power production to low-emission commercial economic power production.
both exactly as planned by their architect Giles Gilbert Scott (one likes to imagine). I wonder what next phase of each is yet to unfurl according to his sheldonian design.