Battersea Power Station, Nine Elms and Vauxhall - redevelopment plans and news

[alef]

Took this little series in the summer. Since then I've been meaning to go out and re-take a few with better weather but just haven't got around to it. Suppose this is a more honest presentation with the typical "tupperware" sky!

Views of Battersea Power Station

 

[stowpirate]

What programme did you use to create the photo album

I like the one of the train with the London skyline in the background.

http://www.alef.co.uk/photos/battersea/i.html

Why would anybody want to take pictures of a power station

I have the same problem with Sizewell and its golf ball

 

[alef]

What programme did you use to create the photo album

I use Photoshop and manually size each thumbnail for the index page, then I use BBEdit which is a straightforward Mac text editor designed for HTML. Since I'm not an HTML expert I've kept it very simple: used a table with no border to hold the page together including the navigation at the bottom and made one page, duplicated it 11 times, then went through and manually changed the page names and links.

I've thought about trying to find a programme or script to automate this, but suspect it'd take longer to set up than is worthwhile. BBEdit colour codes the text which makes it easier to read and has buttons for inserting images and links, though I often find it quicker just to type them in.

 

[stowpirate]

I use Photoshop and manually size each thumbnail for the index page, then I use BBEdit which is a straightforward Mac text editor designed for HTML.

I want to do another website this winter based on my recent photographs and I was going to use your html code with my images and a bit of text but now have decided to use Jasc media centre part of Paint Shop Pro 7. Anyway have you used Photoimpact 8 or is there anybody on this forum who does. Is it any good or should I just continue with what I know - PSP

 

[miss minnie]

i really like the picture of the bowlers - it's a very pleasing composition and has very rich colour, worthy of a competition i'd have thought.

a lovely set of photos.

where is this one taken?

 

[alef]

... Anyway have you used Photoimpact 8 or is there anybody on this forum who does. Is it any good or should I just continue with what I know - PSP

Sorry, no idea. Unless you're dealing with a large scale of photos I think there's a lot to be said for knocking it together in a text editor. Keeping the code short improves download times, also rather satisfying to have made it yourself.

i really like the picture of the bowlers - it's a very pleasing composition and has very rich colour, worthy of a competition i'd have thought.

Cheers, it's by far my favourite, which is why I put it first

where is this one taken?

The last five (except McDonald's) are taken from or in Wandsworth Rd station, the mural is immediately on the right as you enter.

 

[Tricky Skills]

Some lovely photos there alef. What I like about Battersea Power Station is that it dominates most of the South London skyline and so there's always plenty of options for different views. You seem to have captured all the good ones!

HERE'S some pics I took back in May.

 

[Firky]

http://www.alef.co.uk/photos/iran/architecture.html

Nice, very nice.

 

[alef]

http://www.alef.co.uk/photos/iran/architecture.html

Nice, very nice.

Cheers, Skim took half of those. We were lucky enough to visit Iran just before the "war on terrorism" and found it very photogenic. People were incredibly friendly, in fact perhaps a bit too friendly! Think they are starved of tourists and general interaction with the outside world, especially the west. Though it's definitely a relief to visit a country and not see a bloody McDonald's in their city centre.

 

[oryx]

I really enjoyed both sets of photos - the Battersea ones & the Iran ones.

I saw something quite poignant recently - I went to the Wandsworth Museum (highly recommended if you live in the area - it's free) & one artefact was a poster from 1983, by Wandsworth Council, saying that the central electricity generating board (?) had given up the site and it was now free for community use! They were asking for ideas. I think it was shortly before Wandsworth Council changed hands from Labour to (aggressively Thatcherite) Tory.

It made me sad - the Power Station is just down the road from me (I'm very near those modern houses by which alef has taken a picture) and all the time I've been here, since 1984, it's been empty and is now pretty derelict. An attempt was made in the mid-80s to do a similar thing to what Parkview is doing now - with the result that the roof was ripped of, AFAIK the lovely turbine hall was ripped out, & it has suffered from 20 years of neglect & will be very substantially altered for Parkview's project. So much for community use.

 

[Firky]

Tried contacting the national lottery bods?

 

[Hocus Eye.]

I enjoyed the little trip around Battersea Power Station. The idea of taking something significant from different viewpoints is a good one. I liked the poster of a train being followed by a real view of the same kind of train from amost the same viewpoint.

The whole thing reminded me of Hokusai's 36 views of Mount Fuji. (Guess where my user name comes from)

Hocus Eye

 

[timebomb]

I use Photoshop and manually size each thumbnail for the index page, then I use BBEdit which is a straightforward Mac text editor designed for HTML. Since I'm not an HTML expert I've kept it very simple: used a table with no border to hold the page together including the navigation at the bottom and made one page, duplicated it 11 times, then went through and manually changed the page names and links.

I've thought about trying to find a programme or script to automate this, but suspect it'd take longer to set up than is worthwhile. BBEdit colour codes the text which makes it easier to read and has buttons for inserting images and links, though I often find it quicker just to type them in.

http://jalbum.net/ has quick, easy and customisable web album freeware.

 

[kropotkin]

Really good shots mate, you have talent.

As you took some from Wandsworth station- here are two of my first batch from my new Canon 300D (which I am loving) at Tooting station

http://www.pingtiao.org/modules/gallery/New-camera-photos/IMG_0279
http://www.pingtiao.org/modules/gallery/New-camera-photos/IMG_0283
http://www.pingtiao.org/modules/gallery/New-camera-photos/IMG_0288

 

[alef]

The whole thing reminded me of Hokusai's 36 views of Mount Fuji.

Hadn't thought of that, with a few of them I was aiming for more of a "Where's Wally?" book

http://jalbum.net/ has quick, easy and customisable web album freeware.

Thanks, I'll look into it. Though I've got so used to making my own albums in a text editor that I need a good reason to change.

Really good shots mate, you have talent.

As you took some from Wandsworth station- here are two of my first batch from my new Canon 300D (which I am loving) at Tooting station

http://www.pingtiao.org/modules/gallery/New-camera-photos/IMG_0279
http://www.pingtiao.org/modules/gallery/New-camera-photos/IMG_0283
http://www.pingtiao.org/modules/gallery/New-camera-photos/IMG_0288

Cheers Of your three pictures I think the first really stands out. The two women become kind of lost in the graffiti mural, the eyes above are spooky, and that pot of flowers is almost totally camouflaged in!

 

[Paul Russell]

Very interesting pictures. I guess that photographers across the river are working on a London Eye background series. I'd like to see them as well...

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Pigs might fly, but apparently work is going to start soon (if it has not started already) in order to create a large shopping, leisure, conference and accommodation complex, due to open in 2009.

I suppose the site wouldn't have been suitable for social housing or anything.

 

[corporate whore]

I suppose the site wouldn't have been suitable for social housing or anything.

My thoughts exactly. What a fucking waste of land, just when the need for affordable housing is at the top of London's agenda.

But oooh, no. Another retail experience! Greeeeeaaaaaaat.

 

[oryx]

Thanks for providing a great link, Justin. That picture of the Marie Celeste-like messroom is brilliant!

I may be being cynical, but I can see what happened in the 80s (property magnate buys Power Station, starts ripping it about to develop a shrine to capitalism, recession hits, developer goes bust, one of the most magnificent buildings in London is left to rot..... ) happening again.

I visited the Wandsworth Museum in Garratt Lane earlier this year & there is a poignant poster in there from the early 80s. I think it's one of the Council's - "Battersea Power Station is now no longer needed by the CEGB & is available for community use....." or words to that effect. I think it dates from 1983, just before I moved here, and it really brought home to me that that is another era......whatever happened to the possibility of "community use"? (Wandsworth Council going from Labour to Thatcherite Tory is probably what).

I can see that such a huge building would be too great a challenge for most community groups but having watched it decay in parallel with the magnificent regeneration of Bankside, I lament it not having been used similarly - it would have made a great museum of London's industrial heritage, for example, or even another art gallery!

As for social housing - there is a weeny amount of Section 16 (planning gain) social housing on the site (the site is HUGE) within the luxury riverside apartments, but that is a drop in the ocean & from what I've heard, it is shared ownership only & starts at c. £200,000.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Making it social housing in no sense that I can think of (a point I'm well aware you were not oblivious to).

 

[Phototropic]

Got the shock of my life (well not quite but let's excuse hyperbole for a min) was watching Monty Python the other day and it had a view over London and there was smoke coming out of Battersea Power Station!

I fucking love the building. I find it absolutly incredible that there was a time when something like that had to be built brick by brick. Really makes you think.

EDIT: Like with all landmarks I definatley agree that they should be open to the many not the few. One of the reasons why I have never warmed to the Gherkin when I might otherwise have done.

 

[oryx]

Making it social housing in no sense that I can think of (a point I'm well aware you were not oblivious to).

Wandsworth Council have had run-ins with Ken & the GLA about trying to dodge their planning gain obligations - it is verging on the obscene that schemes like this (which is next to the Power Stn site) will tick their boxes in terms of providing "social" housing for planning gain. I think there may be some housing in the Power Stn site itself but you can bet your last penny that it will be a similar set-up.


Where do all the people come from who can afford such flats?

 

[Donna Ferentes]

They do important things like clinching deals, owning production companies and facilitating meetings.

 

[oryx]

They do important things like clinching deals, owning production companies and facilitating meetings.

Real "key" workers then!!!

I suspect a huge number are bought & let out at unthinkable rents.

One thing I have wondered recently, noticing the absolutely phenomenal amount of so-called "luxury" flats built in the last seven or so years, is if there is any housing gain lower down the chain. E.g. fantastically wealthy yup Citykids sell house in Fulham & buy £1m riverside apartment. Less wealthy yups buy house in Fulham, moving from large flat in nobby bit of Clapham. Aspiring middle-manager & partner buy large flat in Clapham, leaving their less large 2-bed flat in, say, Brixton or Balham. Teacher & her partner mortgage themselves to the hilt to buy Brixton/Balham flat, leaving their one-bed council flat. And so on. The "chain" will often be longer & more complicated, but what I mean is that there should, numerically, be more housing available, even if the new stuff is blatantly not affordable.

The reason there isn't is unclear to me: I suspect second homes, the trend towards more people in smaller units, & a transient population in the higher end of the rental market all play a part.

 

[BadlyDrawnGirl]

Pigs might fly, but apparently work is going to start soon (if it has not started already) in order to create a large shopping, leisure, conference and accommodation complex, due to open in 2009.

I suppose the site wouldn't have been suitable for social housing or anything.

Same shit as ever, sadly. I mean, why pay any attention to socio-economic policies when there's a menacing backhander from a decidedly humungous multinational property developer on the cards, eh Tony...? Hmmm?

 

[Pie 1]

Nice link Justin.

Where do all the people come from who can afford such flats?

I got a river taxi from Westminster to Kew last month and had no idea just how many of these luxury riverside appartments there were now. All of them seem to be cut from a similar blueprint too - sort of bridge of a ship look - really ugly from the outside.
I heard as well, that many get bought as investments or to rent out.

 

[Belushi]

They've beeen promising to regenerate it since I was a kid, I'll believe it when I see it.

Great, great building though, its a shame it wasn't regenerated for the Millenium instead of the bloody Dome.

 

[ska invita]

dont mean to be pedantic, but I dont think it would make good housing... there would be no windows.

 

[jæd]

Not a problem. Then you wouldn't see all the chavs who would live there...

 

[T & P]

Always been fascinated by Battersea's Power Station. I hope it is open to the public before I die, though I would not want to see the predictable and bland restaurants and shops plaguing the place.

Fanstatic pictures on that BBC article. It was almost like one of Ed's photo features on U75.

In fact I'm sure Ed would love to be let loose in there with a camera for a few hours...