Guardian Weekly

Architecture

The impressive control room A feels like Chornobyl crossed with the Titanic

IN 1983, THE YEAR BATTERSEA POWER STATION WAS DECOMMISSIONED, the radical architect Cedric Price drew up a provocative proposal for what to do with the gargantuan brick hulk. The London building’s silhouette of four slender white chimneys rising from the stepped art deco brick rooftop was the real icon on the skyline, he reasoned, so why not just save that and do away with the rest? He christened his surrealist proposition the Bat Hat and sketched out how it could all be held aloft on great steel supports, freeing the land below for housing. “We have divested the existing building of all that froze the immediate site,” Price wrote, “leaving only that which is considered important – its height and familiar profile.”

His proposal was intended as a playful dig at the conservation movement. But, visit the site

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