testmeat photoblog

this is battersea power station which is located on the south bank of the river thames near where i live in battersea. built in the 1930s (and updated again in the 1950s) it's a pretty famous london landmark which is apparently the largest brick building in europe. in 1983 it was decommissioned and since then it's just been sitting on the river bank growing old. i did a little reading to find out why this was and it turns out there were a lot of plans for the four chimneyed giant, all of which kept falling through. one of the first plans was to turn it into a theme park - no seriously a theme park - which may have gone ahead if it wasn't for spiralling costs. this plan then switched to offices, shops and a hotel - but money was still an issue so they sold it to a different group. the new guys wanted to create a shopping centre with cafes, bars and nightclubs - but that didn't work out either. there was even interest a few years ago from chelsea football club to build a new stadium at the power station - which trumps the theme park proposal as the craziest idea in the room. the latest group to have their hands on the land want to turn it into a complex of apartments, offices, shops, hotels, restaurants - kind of a bit of everything. work is due to begin this year and in theory it will take 3-4 years for the first phase to be completed. in practice i imagine that this project will eventually fall apart like all the others, and the next rich man with crazy ideas will keep the cycle turning.

here's the original