London's iconic Battersea Power Station is reborn

STORY: Location: London

London’s iconic Battersea Power Station reopens after decades of decay

as a glitzy hub of offices, flats, restaurants and shops

"It's a huge building, it's a London landmark.”

Date: October 14, 2022

The 1930s power station once supplied a fifth of London's electricity

including Buckingham Palace and parliament

[Duncan Wilson, Chief Executive, Historic England]

"It incredibly exciting because it's been a long journey. The power station closed in 1983 and throughout the 80s and 90s there were numerous schemes to try and restore it, none of which got off the ground. The roof came off. I think we thought in our heart of hearts we might have lost the building and then we got this scheme from the current developers who came along in the early part of this millennium and it's taken ten years to realise but it's a fantastic outcome."

The building was known as one of London real estate's toughest challenges

after a series of false starts, including an attempt to recreate it as a theme park

"It was technically a very difficult building to save. They had to rebuild the cooling towers because the concrete was rotten. That's just one of the challenges."

The $10.2 billion redevelopment will see thousands of people living and working here

Apple will become the largest office tenant, occupying six floors

in the former central boiler house of the power station

"It's a temple of power built in an age when people did take more care and spent more money on design and materials than perhaps they did, certainly in the later phase of the power station less was spent and it is more utilitarian. But it is very carefully thought through and the brick work, the external brickwork is astoundingly well detailed on a massive scale."

For views of London's skyline, visitors will be able to take a lift

up to the top of one of the iconic chimneys