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art : features Mostly about the remains of Battersea Power Station Battersea Power Station has been in a state of semi-dereliction for so long now that the dereliction has become a part of what Battersea Power Station is. The first part of the name (Battersea) qualifies the second part (Power Station) as disused with no requirement for prefixes such as ‘the former’. Anyone who has seen the grade 2 listed building over the last few months however, will not have failed to notice the ever increasing cladding of scaffolding which is enveloping it. So what’s the plan? Parkview International (London) Plc has embarked upon a £500m development of the site. Parkview intends to use “leading firms of British architects who have had to meet the challenge of creating a public destination for the 21st century whilst respecting and preserving the integrity of an industrial building from another era”. A few lines on who Parkview are can help us interpret this laudable sounding aim. Parkview International PLC is a part of the Parkview Group, which is a family owned organisation with its headquarters in Hong Kong. The group boasts that it “has interests in oil, gas, hospitality, transportation and shipping”. On the ‘Master Plan’ website (www.thepowerstation.co.uk) Parkview announces that Battersea Power Station will become a multi-function complex hosting a cinema, residential accommodation, hotels and restaurants. In an article entitled Can non-places be (re)transformed into places?, Giancarlo de Carlo establishes an economic basis for the difference between places and ‘non-places’. “In the last thirty years, with the aim of reaching maximum efficiency of use with the minimum energy, the specialisation of space has enormously increased. As a consequence there are fewer places and ‘non-places’ have multiplied. Every habitable space is shaped to fill the primary function among those for which it was designated with as little economic and expressive engagement as possible. Space has become monochrome, odourless and polished, devoid of footholds for other ideations aside from the one for which it is designated, which for that matter does not catch on and evaporates into alienation because space cannot be envisaged if it is compared with other spaces, or place with other places.” This would be of only academic interest were Battersea Power Station a unique, one-off project. It is clear to see however, that the Parkview development is one of a continuum of buildings with a historic significance to become a ‘non-place’. Even the Jack Straw’s Castle in the Hampstead of Bram Stoker’s Dracula has become apartments which are unaffordable to most Londoners. Rather than lament the demise of Battersea Power Station however, we could more positively see the building’s re-use as green belt land saved. While it would seem unlikely that most Londoners would be able to make any use of the Parkview development, we can all be grateful, albeit in a less immediate sense, for the overall trend for recycling as opposed to abandoning and starting again elsewhere. This is not to say that Parkview deserve our gratitude however. Giancarlo de Carlo’s argument is that this trend for re-using is borne out of economic and environmental/legislative necessity, not any good will on the part of the developers. In terms of visual prominence, it is hard to beat. What is perhaps less known is that when the building was completed, in 1939, it was a single long turbine hall with a chimney at each end. Not until 1959 did Battersea Power Station become the famous four chimney building when an identical building was build to join on to the original. Because the history of buildings in a city can become parts of a biography of that city, the Parkview development can tell us something about London. The original power station once used the Thames in a practical way. The change to top end residential building, which uses the river for decoration, seems to correlate with our society becoming more office based and less industrial. Prior to being a power station, the site on which the development is situated was formerly known as Battersea Fields. It was also thought of as an area of ill-repute, frequented by 'vagabonds and undesirables'. We should also not forget to ask whether there might be any symbolic significance, or appeal, to the current development derived from its previous use. In an article in the FT Magazine (25/09/04), Stephen Pinock suggests that the popularity of Dan Brown’s book, The da Vinci Code, is rooted in the potential closeness of the subject to the reader. Secret messages and the desire to crack codes and understand, Stephen Pinock argues, appeals to the human brain’s “predilection for patterns”, and so it could be argued that an equally well written book on a subject of less archetypal appeal would have sold fewer copies. Given that one of the ‘tasks’ of writing a good novel is to choose an appealing story, this doesn’t really hold much weight as literary criticism. It does however, pose an interesting question about appeal which we could extrapolate to buildings public spaces. Is Battersea Power Station then, of greater public interest than some other buildings? Although open during this year’s Open House weekend, Plantation House, for example, doesn’t seem to be talked about. Might it be the case that Battersea Power Station has come to represent something more than was intended by Giles Gilbert Scott, its architect some 65 years ago? In being so strikingly unique in its appearance, Battersea Power Station is as far away as possible from the glass clad steel frames which are becoming so common place. When it becomes the case that there are so many glass and steel buildings which are ‘light’ and could be anywhere in the world, (a non-place) there might well be a trend for buildings which are both weighty in appearance unique to their location (a place). Perhaps after all it is in the best interests of the Parkview International that they do “respect and preserve the integrity of an industrial building from another era.” KM |
Interview:
Tate's Head of Collections
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