On the train to Victoria in the twilight on Saturday, it was a pleasure as always to see the crumbling shell of Battersea Power Station. It’s beautiful, overgrown and full of debris. My friend Kirsti had been raving about it and how much she loves ruins in general.
The dreadful state of the landmark BPS is so completely of human making that it’s tempting to see the place, so picturesque and prominent, as London’s greatest folly. It seems appropriate that a London folly (an urban sublime) should be on such a grand scale and have the sleek lines of the machine age rather than crumbling Victorian gothic.
It seems they have a masterplan for the power station (I had terrible fear of Duran Duran splinter groups when clicking on that link), a brave new world for the old dear, theatres and flats and so on. Good luck to them. I guess.