S. Worthen | Weblog

Any day when I pack for going out and think "Why would I need a camera today?" is a day in which I will need a camera. But after all - why would I need one for skating around Battersea Park? humanfemale found a group of rollerbladers who do leisurely circuits of the park on Saturday mornings. The Easy Peasy Skate, as its called, had around fifteen people showing up for it on a morning of perfect weather. Many of them are advanced far beyond leisurely circuits - some to half-marathons, many to street skating - but they all still enjoy a stroll in the park on wheels on a lovely day. And so it was we met at the Peace Pagoda, skated for nearly four kilometers, stopping regularly to regroup, and then retired to the park's café for refreshment. They were also how we learned that Battersea Power Station was open that day for visits (and had been for Saturdays all month), an event not likely to happen again for quite awhile. Neither of us had ever been.

It was an unexpectedly long walk to get to something so close, thanks to a large intervening construction project, but we made it to the display center easily enough after only one point of route despair. The display center advertised the currently proposed plans for redeveloping the power station into a housing/entertainment complex with new Northern line Underground station and environmentally-friendly heating and cooling methods. I admit, the prospect of a new Underground station excited me the most. After promising not to sue them if dust blew on our possessions, and after picking up our free bottle of water for hydration en route, we set out along the indirect edge of a car park, through a fenced-off path, for the towering monument to power.

Even largely derelict, it's a structure of dignity and a certain elegance, fluted-columns stretching up to the clear blue sky, decorative brickwork, and its industrial Art Deco overall design. Stripped of its interior, its vast spaces are all that is left - most of which will be filled in by the proposed renovations to make the grade 2* listed building useful again.

I might not have brought my camera, but I had my mobile phone with me; this was finally incentive enough for me to test it out and figure out how to upload photos off of the camera. I love how the low-resolution and poor quality of lens on the phone make the photos look old, washed-out, and grainy, as if taken thirty years ago instead of this weekend. Here are the best of them.

The iconic towers

One of the two side halls

The main space, through a fence

Main space, with glare

The main space, with crowd