Architects imagine a Battersea Power Station rollercoaster conversion

Even though its current owner has boring plans to turn it into flats and a shopping complex, architects can't resist imagining new uses for Battersea Power Station. Architecture firm Atelier Zndel Cristea (AZC) is the latest, rendering a future station that's both a museum of architecture and a giant rollercoaster.

Before you get too excited, this isn't going to actually happen any time soon -- the site is owned by a consortium of Malaysian investors who are intent on turning the power station into the centrepiece of a new 3,400 home development that is incredibly dull. AZC, though, is the firm that was behind the idea for a trampoline bridge across the Seine, and that sense of fun can be seen in "The Architectural Ride", with the power station turned into a museum which visitors can get a full view of by taking a ride on a rollercoaster that encircles and slices through the iconic brick building.

It's the winner of a competition hosted by ArchTriumph to imagine a new Museum of Architecture for London using the power station as its site and inspiration. The rollercoaster is for people who want to see the Sir Giles Gilbert Scott-designed building from all angles, but a number of new floors and galleries inside and on the roof will host exhibitions on architecture from the modern era to as far back as the Middle Ages.

The Tate Modern -- located down the river in the former Bankside Power Station -- also serves as an influence. The AZC team write: "Our project puts the power station on centre stage. Our created pathway links together a number of spaces for discovery: the square in front of the museum, clearings, footpaths outside and above and inside, footpaths traversing courtyards and exhibition rooms. The angles and perspectives created by the rail's pathway, through the movement within and outside of the structure, place visitors in a position where they can perceive simultaneously the container and its contents, the work and nature. They come to participate in several simultaneous experiences: enjoying the displayed works, being moved by the beauty of the structure and the city: river, park, buildings."

The power station has arguably been a victim of its own fame, and has tended to be worth more as an investment than an active project for its successive owners over the years. Proposals for the site have come and gone without anything actually happening, leaving the building empty and falling apart since 1983. The very first winning bid, submitted at the time, was from the owners of Alton Towers, who wanted to turn it into the centrepiece of a new central London theme park.

In recent years there have also been proposals to convert it into Chelsea Football Club's new stadium, or to tear down all but the front and rear walls with the chimneys and create a new park, and even to turn it back into a functioning (and ecologically-friendly) power plant running on bio-fuel. We can only hope that the current developers now reconsider their plans for luxury flats, luxury flats, shops and more luxury flats instead.

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Architects imagine a Battersea Power Station rollercoaster conversion