Discovering London: Battersea, from power plant to power center

Photos' by Retiring Guy

During our visit to the Tate Modern, Eddie mentioned that the Battersea, another power plant on the Thames, had been repurposed as a shopping/dining/ entertainment/office/residential complex. The huge Battersea facility is featured, somewhat ominously, on the cover of Pink Floyd’s 1977 album “Animals”. 

Construction of Battersea A commenced in 1929 and was completed in 1935. Battersea B got underway in 1937, but work was halted in 1941 due to World War II. The architectural design makes it seem as though the two power plants are one massive building. It wasn’t 1955 when all construction work on B was finished. 

Less than 30 years later, however, both plants had been decommissioned: A in 1975 and B in 1983. The facility remained empty and fell into near ruin by the time investors envisioned a way to reuse it in 2012. Ten years, the repurposed main power station, which includes a large shopping mall, opened to the public. 

As someone who has an interest in urban history and architectural design, I suggested we see for ourselves how this ambitious urban renewal turned out. Fortunately, everyone else was on board with this idea. 

The swath of land surrounding Battersea has been transformed into a large residential area with both high-rise and low-rise buildings. Inside the power plant, we spent most of our time wandering through the areas where a mall, offices, hotel and conference rooms are located. The vast interior space of the former power plant has been impressively redesigned. And everyone in while we glimpsed a hint of what the interior might have looked like years ago. (It reminded me of the six months I worked at Penelec in 1973.)