Brief Encounters
Battersea Power Station has finally reopened. How does this remarkable industrial building look and feel up close and repurposed?
A GREAT VIOLENCE is done to both a place and its people when the landmarks, icons and artefacts that they know and love and which have defined them and their culture for a century or more are obliterated by war. This is the case so eloquently laid out by Robert Bevan in his 2006 book, The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War. The narrative was then enriched by filmmaker Tim Slade in his equally riveting documentary of the same name from 2016, detailing how the strategic bombing by invading forces of temples, churches, libraries, museums, places of civic congregation and enrichment, was eventually successfully listed – and prosecuted – as a war crime.
‘Every building sends a message,’ said Slade, in an interview at the film’s launch. ‘This is the most important truth that I learned in making the documentary.’
If this is true, what does this mean for cities or neighbourhoods that have been massively re-landscaped and redeveloped over the last 20 years – not in the name of war, but of speculative development? Where the residents of these areas are not the intended beneficiaries, and where the development involves displacement and even large scale disfigurement, that is also an act of violence, according to academic and writer Leslie Kern, in her recent book Gentrification Is Inevitable, and Other Lies.
How would Kern, Bevan and Slade view the conundrum of Battersea Power Station – an icon of London’s industrial age that we Londoners continued to care passionately about even as it crumbled on the southern shores of the Thames following its decommissioning in 1987? At certain points in the intervening decades it seemed the building could not or would not be saved, as one after another, schemes tried and failed to balance cost against projected income.
Well, it is fully returned to life now, thanks to architects WilkinsonEyre and Battersea Power Station Development Company (BPSDC). Almost a decade after the latter’s successful rescue of the failing site, it has opened its doors, revealing a loving and characterful restoration of this Grade II listed power station, built in two phases over the 1930s and 1950s and largely to the designs of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. Not everyone agrees, of course: Oliver Wainwright, the Guardian’s architecture critic described it as a ‘zombie corpse... resuscitated with a £9bn life support system of luxury lifestyle concepts.’
The original brick facade of the Battersea Power Station has been lovingly recreated. However, the project does suffer from some ‘soulless’ spaces, despite some of the steampunk charm located within the larger site. Image Credit: John Sturrock
But – attending the same press preview as Wainwright, when the retail offer was unfinished – I found myself inwardly cheering at the care which WilkinsonEyre and conservation architects Purcell had clearly taken over preserving the key materials and qualities of the building. Each of those remarkable white chimneys has been completely rebuilt between 2014–2017, using the original construction techniques. The great brick slabs of its facades have been repaired with 1.8m bricks sourced from the original brickmakers (Northcot Bricks in Gloucestershire and Blockleys in Shropshire).
The major interventions necessary to bring daylight into the two Turbine Halls as well as the luxury apartments around the upper levels have been achieved elegantly. There are subtle insertions of Crittal-style windows in dark frames, whose proportions echo those of the surrounding structure, a full-height glass void behind the southern wall, and restoration of an original skylight over Turbine Hall A.
Inside, the architects balance out the need to retain the character and scale of the building while accommodating a more subtle retail presentation than any glittering, logo encrusted Westfield (a huge sigh of relief there!). Turbine Hall A, completed in the 1930s, has retained more original features such as fluted pilasters clad in original creamy tiles. WilkinsonEyre took great pains to ensure that the shopfronts tuck in behind these pilasters, with minimal signage. And I liked the steam-punk aesthetic of the dark metal balustrades, stairs and bridges that draw visitors through and across the volumes around and between each hall.
Turbine Hall B, completed in the 1950s and with less in the way of period features to start with, is a more sleek and minimalist affair, but still you felt that the big gestures were all appropriate – serving its new uses and users but without demeaning or detracting from the original structure.
Wainwright had a point about luxury lifestyle concepts: this restoration has been bankrolled by flogging off most of this 42ha site for luxurious apartments (a pathetic nine per cent was earmarked ‘affordable’). And the bland, characterless landscape they have generated around the power station represent a sorry excuse for starchitecture – especially Frank Gehry’s building, which looks designed on the cheap and hurriedly executed. In comparison, I felt, the Power Station was a glowing beacon of authentic architecture in a sea of corporate condominiums.
But in order to really assess whether the resuscitation of this landmark has been a success, I needed to see it with the 100 or so retail and food and beverage operators in full operation. Sadly, a post-Christmas visit proved depressing. Entering into Turbine Hall A, there is definitely a ‘wow’ factor, generated by the dramatic scale, the combination of rough and crafted materials, old and new – including glimpses into the fabulous Control Room A, restored but sadly only available for private functions. There was plenty in the gleaming shopfronts and those striking metal balustrades, stairs and bridges to make you want to explore all four public levels.
The original brick facade of the Battersea Power Station has been lovingly recreated. However, the project does suffer from some ‘soulless’ spaces, despite some of the steampunk charm located within the larger site. Image Credit: John Sturrock
However, spend an hour in the building and you soon spot where corners have been cut – not by WilkinsonEyre, but those managing and designing the retail experience. There has been little thought given over to the comfort of customers. Toilet facilities are both hard to find and, when you do find them, feel cheaper and meaner than those typical of a motorway service station. There is ample space – in linking corridors and around entrances – for creating a sense of welcome and invitation to dwell, but it’s only those spending money (in cafes, bars and restaurants) that get to spend time relaxing here. A handful of cheap sofas and a potted plant shoved in one corner come across very much as an afterthought. It needs softness and sanctuaries, inspired planting, better lighting.
Nothing about the shops is special enough to tempt Londoners away from their customary haunts: there are a few super premium brands then the usual roll-call of upper mid-range retailers – Aesop, Ralph Lauren, Space NK, Lululemon, Jo Malone – along with mass market brands Uniqlo, Zara and Mango. A new outlet called Curated Makers, which links local independent artists and makers with the high street, sounded promising but was full of entirely unnecessary and unremarkable tatt (dog collars, scented candles, tea towels, prints and cards).
It’s also highly unlikely that those inhabiting the two storey ‘sky villas’ on the roof, selling for £8m apiece, will mingle down here among the hoi polloi; on the night I visited, in late December, from the peak of the Lift 109 viewing point, none of their lights were on anyway.
The one good thing about the luxury accommodation is that it is tucked up in the top of the building, so it’s presence isn’t shoved down the throats of the visiting public.
Yes, there are 19 acres of ‘public’ (but really private) space and two new underground stations on the Northern Line Extension, from which the public will benefit, but a lot more work will have to be done before this becomes a seriously appealing destination not just for one ‘been there, done that’ visit, but many. It is, however, early days. A 24,000 sq ft food court is arriving in the ‘boiler room’, and it’s possible that as the shops become more established there will be momentum and cash to initiate a genuine accommodation of the general public without whom this will become just another fabulous monument in a sterile and soulless setting for the super-rich.
