All language subtitles for The.Art.of.Architecture.S01E02.Episode.2.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-TEPES

Narrator: 35 years after
it was left for dead,

Battersea Power Station
is being restored.

Designed by
Sir Giles Gilbert Scott,

the man who created
the red telephone kiosk,

this London landmark was rescued
by a Malaysian consortium

which selected architects
WilkinsonEyre

to give it a new life.

- The most incredible thing
about it

is the sheer scale of it.

This absolutely enormous space.

And then there's always more
to discover,

so you go in a bit further
or you go up into one of the -

either of the switch houses
on either side.

And then you find those
extraordinary control rooms,

you know, with its sort of
beautifully designed...

Everything very carefully
designed and worked through.

It's just an awesome space.

[soft piano music]

Narrator:
Battersea Power Station

was built
for the London Power Company

in the early 1930s
when coal was king.

It devoured a million tonnes
a year,

brought in by rail and river.

- When you look at the sheer
scale of that building,

probably against the context
of that time, you know,

the buildings that were in
the vicinity around it.

And on the opposite side
of the river,

back in the 1930s
were pretty low scale buildings.

This was an extraordinarily

large thing to introduce
into a city.

Bigger than stations,

termini building or anything
for that matter

and bigger than any cathedral.

Narrator: Battersea Power
Station survived the Blitz,

was doubled in size
in the 1950s.

Two chimneys became four

and exactly 50 years after
opening,

it was decommissioned and would
have been demolished

if it hadn't been for a campaign
by Save Britain's Heritage.

- I was rung up
by the BBC Nationwide

and they said to me, "Mr Binney,

"Battersea Power Station
is being demolished.

"Should it be saved?"
I said, "Yes!"

We had great trouble in getting
in there, actually.

And it was only through
Tony Benn

the Labour Minister of Power

that we got the electricity
board to let us in.

We then had this grand
tour of it

and got very excited about
the potential of it.

'Cause although the wonderful
turbines were being stripped out

of Turbine Hall A, we saw this
magnificent turbine hall.

The fantastic control room
and then control room B.

It was a...real magnificent
interior,

as well as the great landmark
value with its soaring chimneys.

We always said, it is the Mount
Everest of preservation.

It is the most difficult
thing of all.

We did a very detailed scheme
in this book called

'The Colossus of Battersea'.

And we showed how it could be
converted

for sports use and leisure use.

About five years ago, the voices
started saying well, you know,

preservation's proved hopeless.

It's...it's just a no goer,

can't we just knock it down
and have something new.

So we did another scheme,

this time with the architects
Allies and Morrison.

And all these schemes
successfully has come forward,

there have been terrible
hiccups, terrible setbacks,

but now we hope
we're on the final run.

Narrator: Coming to this almost
derelict building in 2013,

Malaysian investors saw
the potential for shops,

offices and apartments.

They employed the Uruguayan
architect Rafael Viñoly

to draw up a master plan

and gained consent for enabling
development.

Including the apartment blocks
that have sprung up here,

whose sale has helped finance
the whole project.

- It is unique.

It's extraordinary that somebody
initially

would have decided to put
a building like this

potentially in the middle
of the world's greatest city.

If it was somewhere
on the coast,

it might not be quite
so exciting.

But it is that juxtaposition
of this building in the city

that's made it so incredibly
interesting.

So, [inhales] a huge challenge
for the team

to keep that building alive
for 30 years.

People tried once the power
had been turned off in 1983

to, um, come up with an optimal
development solution.

And for 30 years
they...they failed

until our shareholders bought
the site in 2013.

And at which point very much
turned the power back on.

The short-term, easy profit

would be to take a flat piece
of land, develop something

which is - which could
be developed anywhere else.

But the guy that realises
the optimal solution,

the one that creates the longest
value, the best use,

is to actually celebrate
that building.

And create it as a centre piece

is the person who will
ultimately succeed.

So...frankly,

a brave developer is the person
who...who appreciates heritage

and culture are things to be
appreciated, rather than things

to be avoided as you try and get
your best return on equity.

Narrator: By now,
the old power station

was listed grade two star.

And the challenge for Jim Eyre
and his team was how to design

a commercially viable scheme
while respecting the art

embodied in Gilbert Scott's
creation.

- There's something really
interesting about his work.

I mean, there's definitely this
sort of

modernist edge to it somehow,

but there's this
kind of slightly idiosyncratic

decoration that he introduces
into his buildings.

Which actually I quite like,
you know.

And he's not afraid to use
traditional materials or -

so he's not...he's - no way is
he an out and out modernist

by any stretch
of the imagination.

But spatially he sort of seems
to think

rather like a modernist.

Gilbert Scott had this sort of
- apart from the monumentalism,

this quite frequent use
of repetitive elements.

You know,
particularly lining up windows.

Lots of thin elements one after
the other

in this sort of regimented line.

And when you look at the power
station it's the same.

You know, it has...it has those
sorts of elements to it,

that kind of repetition.

Accentuating for instance
the sort of verticality

to the power station
to sort of, you know,

the sheer power and strength
of these four towers,

one at each corner.

So for instance,
when we were looking at - well,

how do you introduce windows
[laughs] into this building?

You know, there are hardly any
windows at all.

Well, the right way to do it
seemed to me well,

have lots and lots of very
narrow ones

and make them very tall
and very, very thin

and...and equally spaced.

And it just seemed the right
way to do it.

So, there are things
that I think I learned

about Charles Gilbert Scott.

Not particularly historical
things,

just looking at buildings
and his work

that I think really helped when
we started to look at -

or were competing, in fact,
for the power station.

[city sounds]

Narrator: The architects
drew up plans for retail

in Battersea's two turbine halls
and,

in the main boiler house
offices.

They'll be the European
headquarters of Apple

with apartments above.

- We've got an office component
in the building

which is in the region of 45,000
square metre

which is actually the scale
of the Gherkin.

And that...that part
fit in the building.

You know, the Gherkin,
if you put it horizontally,

it fit in the building and it's
only 35% of the building.

And literally that element here
will be here,

the Gherkin will sit
horizontally

it's six story height building.

And that six story high building
of the office

is basically sandwiched between
three story of retail,

two story of event space,

and two story of residential
villas on top.

So it really give you an idea
of scale,

because that...that office
element is like the skin

of an internal street.
So we have an internal atrium,

a central atrium there,
which is about 20 metre wide

by 20 feet five metre high,
so that's,

I don't know,
it's Regent Street.

You know, that's the kind
of scale we're talking about,

and not just an internal
component within the building.

So, it's - yeah,
it's phenomenal,

and really it's something that
very few of us

will have ever had the chance
to explore and to work with.

It's a really unusual scale
to deal with.

[soft music]

Some of the first sketches we
did when we did the competition

was about trying to create those
glimpse, those moment,

where whether you are
in a retail environment,

whether you are in the office.

You always a...you have
a diagonal view,

which give you a glance
of the terminé,

or give you a glance
to one of the existing mould.

Making sure that wherever
you are in the building,

when you are likely to be in
the new built element,

you always have a visual contact
with the existing fabric.

[uplifting music]

When they are in the existing
fabric,

we are exposing from inside
the brick work.

So, we are not over insulating
them and covering them.

We are exposing it.

And again, you know, it will be
the original brick work.

And you will have some embedded
steel beam in them

so they will all be exposed,
so you will see the roughness

of the...of the structure.

[uplifting music]

Narrator: Sebastien Ricard
oversees 30 architects

who live and breathe
Battersea Power Station.

They're on site all day
every day

working alongside the engineers,
surveyors and builders.

It means they can respond
instantly

if any minor changes are needed.

- What is great is there is not
one typology.

There is different typology

'cause we are dealing with
offices,

we are dealing with residential,
we are dealing with retail.

So it's not about applying
a recipe.

You know,
like some developer client

would want you to do, because
you can't apply a recipe.

The building fabric was made
for something else.

So it's...it was much more
about

trying to find the, er,
quirkiness of the building

and using that quirkiness
to your advantage as designer.

So in other words,
it's about saying well,

we want to celebrate
the industry

or nature of the building.
So it's not actually saying

we gonna - we want to make
perfect wall.

We want to expose the decay
of the building

so we - for instance here,
you know,

we've got the main entrance
of the building,

the main facade,
the self elevation.

Where we are - what we didn't
want it to do

is to restore all the facade,
so what we are doing is

creating what we call
a bow string structure.

At the back of it
which is normally

a very lightweight structure.

Which is designed to support
a glass facade, normally.

And here the reason
we are using it is

because it's very lightweight,

so it basically doesn't detract
visually from the brick element

the brick component
of the facade.

So we can see the roughness
of the brick,

and we don't over restore it.

If there are some tag
on the wall, we leave them.

So this is an example of where
we want people

when they come to the building

to just know what the building
was for before.

And it wasn't a pristine,
you know, monument,

it was an industrial building.

So it was made for that
and needs to remain like that.

- Reusing a building like this,
I mean,

the building doesn't have
insulation

so you've got to think well,
how do we deal with that.

We've got to bring it up to
modern building regulations,

fire standards, et cetera.

There's a huge sort of degree
of complexity involved in that.

And how's it ventilated and,
you know,

fresh air,
warm air and so on.

And the real - I think in many
ways, the real difficulty

or challenge is the multiple
uses in the building, actually.

If it was all one thing,

that removes a huge layer
of complexity.

But having multiple uses,
because we have retail,

quite a lot of retail, got
leisure, office and residential.

We've got new residential and
converted units to residential.

So we've got a whole range
of different uses

in one building, which is quite
rare in this country.

It's very rare that you get
residential on top of offices,

particularly, in this country.

It happens elsewhere
but not here.

The spaces on top
of the building,

you can build up.

And then the sort of heart
of the building

does work quite well
for offices,

'cause you've got
this great depth,

far too much depth
for residential.

And we can carve out an enormous
atrium in the centre,

probably bigger than any other
atrium in this country.

But still get deep floor plans
of over 20 metres,

which is pretty much
what the market

would want for offices.

And then the lower levels it's
really an internal environment

mainly, with these two
extraordinary turbine halls

is kind of ideal for...for
retail uses.

[uplifting music]

Narrator: The Battersea Power
Station architects,

WilkinsonEyre,
the London based practice

Chris Wilkinson and Jim Eyre
have run for 30 years.

Designed the Millennium Bridge
at Gateshead

which won the Stirling Prize
in 2002.

The Gasholders at King's Cross,

the Weston Library in Oxford
and a whole range of projects

around the world
from high-rises in China.

Among them some of the tallest
buildings in the world.

To the cooled conservatories

at the Gardens by the Bay
in Singapore.

[uplifting music]

As a practice,
they're hard to pin down.

Jim Eyre says they look at every
commission with a fresh eye.

He knew from early on that
he might be an architect.

So his mother bought him
a subscription

to 'Architectural Review'.

- I would have been 14 or 15,
something like that.

And I was...I was always
very keen on art.

And I loved, I love painting
and drawing and so on

and I don't seem to do very much
these days.

But [inhales] I was also -

I've always had a sort
of reasonably good

sort of scientific
or mathematical brain.

Nothing very clever [laughs]
nothing special

but I did sort of think - I
always thought about, well,

how are things made as well
as the aesthetic if you like.

And...architecture seemed quite
a sort of logical

and natural thing to move into.

And I couldn't really think
of anything else

I wanted to do, particularly.

So it wasn't like
I had this amazing passion

to be an architect,

but I just thought this...this
is the right thing for me to do.

And I kind of never looked
back from that.

[soft music]

Narrator: Jim became a disciple
of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe,

the German American modernist.

Behind buildings like this,
the Farnsworth House in Chicago

constructed just after
the Second World War.

It's a good illustration of one
of Mies' most famous quotes,

"Less is more."

Mies also said,
"God is in the detail."

And those ideals have guided Jim
Eyre's drawings down the years.

And he argues today,
that an ingenious concept

like the one
for Battersea Power Station

is not enough on its own.

It will stand or fall on
the quality of detailing,

which is where computer art
comes in.

- Well, I've always felt that,
in - and you know,

the difference between a good...
good building and a bad building

is often just actually
it can just be in the details.

Because you can have the most
amazing concept,

might look good in
the photographs

if they're not taken too close.

But it's that sort of closer
examination of a building

that makes it more timeless,
that makes it last longer.

The real feel of quality I think
comes out

in the level of thought
that's gone into the details.

And if you lose that,

I feel that you lose a lot
from a building.

Ideally as an architect,
you know, you want to have

absolute control of...of every
aspect of design.

But I think, you know,
on a project of this scale,

the economics of it
are kind of important.

We're talking about large
numbers.

And I think the thing to do is

always to work out well,
where is the right place

to spend the money
first of all.

And generally speaking
it's on things

that you come in touch with
and see

and...and the fabric
of the building

and what keeps the weather out.

Those things have to be done
well.

And not to agonise
over things that nobody sees.

[laughs]

And just not ex...experienced.

And too - in a way
I think as an architect,

you therefore pick your fights
quite carefully on...

..on you know,
what's really important,

and just...just focus on making
those things happen.

But part of it
also is not going off

on flights of fancy too much.

You know, make sure that what
you're designing is needed.

[laughs]

And then concentrate
on detailing it in a, you know,

sensible, elegant way
and functional way.

Narrator: Detail obsessed
Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, too.

In the 1930s,
his homage to industry,

ingenuity and progress included
bronze doors,

wrought-iron staircases,

and a spectacular control room
in the Art Deco style.

This space survives although

it's under wraps during
the building work.

But the polished tiled walls
in the turbine hall

are there for all to see.

A sort of Greek temple devoted
to energy.

Art had its place in 1930's
architecture.

Details like these are part
of the listed building

and Historic England have
insisted

they're restored rather
than replaced.

- There was sadly
a sort of, a belief by some

that listing a building means
it has to be preserved in aspic

and that nothing can happen
to it.

Um, and certainly, our position
is very different from that.

I mean,
each building on its own merits.

In the case
of Battersea Power Station,

this is a building that was
decommissioned in 1983.

Along came a succession

of abortive development
proposals,

including one very well
publicised proposal

to turn the...the building
into a theme park.

And what the - what happened at
that...that point was the...

..the roof was...was taken off
the boiler house.

And that can be a death sentence
for historic buildings,

and its condition deteriorated
rapidly.

In this case, we're pragmatists.

And we understand that there
needs to be a certain amount

of development
because let's be honest,

there is quite
a lot of development happening

around Battersea Power Station
that will impact on some views.

But the conservation work alone
is...is substantial.

It's...hundreds, literally
hundreds of millions of pounds

just to get the building
in a good state of repair.

If we think about for example
the new views

that the public will get
of the power station,

my feeling is that although
there's a lot of new development

happening around
about the power station.

Its prime setting is very much
related to the Thames.

And the new public realm

that will be created between
the Thames and the power station

is - it's a massive space.

Um, and those iconic views
of the power station

are really from its...its river
frontage and across river.

So...so those will be preserved.

[soft music]

Narrator: Historic England
also put strict conditions

on Battersea's four chimneys.

Originally there were only two,
the others were added

when the power station
was extended in the 1950s.

The new owners were told they
could be taken down,

but must be replaced
like for like.

It was a controversial decision.

- The way they were constructed
was a completely bespoke method

that no chimney contractor would
ever dream of doing now.

The chimneys were originally
fabricated

in sections of about 1.2
metres.

Um, and they were these
sections,

sort of circular sections well,
stacked up on top of each other.

But crucially, they - the
concrete was cast in situ.

I was involved
in the site inspections.

Um, I went out and had
a...a look at the...the chimneys

as they were being
taken down and rebuilt.

And when the first one
was rebuilt

to a height of 25 metres,
that gave us the reassurance

that they could all be taken
down,

that the other three were taken
down then and built back up.

And it's gone from something
that was very controversial

at the time to something now
we can really celebrate.

Narrator: In the restoration
of Battersea Power Station

there a thousand challenges.

How, for instance,
do you match new bricks

with old in a structure
that was built 80 years ago?

The very first question
that we asked ourselves

when we started
to work at Battersea

is what is our repair
philosophy?

What are we trying
to achieve here?

What's the building going
to look like when we've...

..when we've finished it?

Er, um, and what we were struck
by actually

was previous repair regimes
that had happened that er,

the brick match was not perhaps
quite what it should be.

I mean, Battersea is a huge
building, but it's...

..it's a piece of sort of 30s
streamlined design.

It's...it's remarkably
susceptible to patch repair

which starts to upset its...its
clean lines

and its, er, er,
sort of streamlined design.

You know, it works very much
as an interplay of sort of light

and shadow and modelling
on the facades

to break down its vast bulk.

As opposed to applied ornament
that you might find in...in

perhaps buildings of earlier
periods.

So, if you put in a repair
that, er, perhaps isn't...

..isn't blended in quite as well
as it might be,

it really does stand out.

So, really from the off we were
trying to blend the repairs in

as...as seamlessly
as we possibly could.

Narrator: Surveyor David Hills
wasn't sure if the firm

that made the bricks in
the 1930s was still in business.

I had to get brick samples sent
in from various manufacturers

and I used to push them across
to the building in a wheelbarrow

and hold them up against
the...against the building.

No, that doesn't work,
this doesn't work.

And it went on for...for months.

We weren't really getting
anywhere, particularly at all.

And it all came from
a...a contemporary article

from 1935 which said it's clad
externally in Blockley bricks.

We found a company around there

that was quite prominent
in brick making.

And we thought well, we really
could be onto something here.

So I...I phoned up
the, the works and er,

excitedly speaking
to the receptionist, said,

"oh, really exciting er,

"we think you might have made
the original bricks

"for Battersea Power Station.
We're regenerating the building.

[stammers]

"We'd really like to...to speak
to you."

And...I got a sort of deadpan
response

they said, "well, everybody's in
a meeting right now."

[stammers]

"You know,
I can take your number

"and I'll get back to you
a bit later on."

And said, "what was it called?
Battersea Power Station."

And she'd really not heard
of it at all.

And I was like... [exhales]

"Can you spell that? BAT", and
she's repeating, "BAT" too me,

and as she was saying that,

I heard somebody walk...past
behind me and say,

"Oh, we supplied the original
brick work for that."

And I said,
"who is that person?"

"Let me speak
to that person there."

And we started to...er
materialise.

And it turned out that the works
manager had a photograph,

an original photograph from
1935.

Showing the power station
talking about the bricks

that they used in order to...to
make it.

And that really then,
he said right,

"well, I'll come up tomorrow
with a boot full of bricks."

And he did. And the rest
is history. Modern history.

- We really like the challenge,
actually,

of working with an existing
building.

There's something I really love
about this combination

of the new and the old together.

And the new can contrast
with the old

but it doesn't necessarily
have too.

So a lot of...a lot of what
we do that's new

is quite sort of fine
and light,

but still has a sort of
vaguely industrial feel too it.

And sometimes we look at
something,

some part of it that's old,
and we think, well,

actually we do need to restore
that bit.

Sometimes we say well, actually,

look at that bit in its sort
of degraded or...state.

Let's just keep that,
because it looks amazing.

You know, it might just
be paint that's sort of,

or graffiti or something that's
there that's interesting.

And you get this extraordinary
contrast

between the historic fabric
and then the new.

One against the other.

Which I think is sort
of really exciting.

I've always had this thought

that when you're working
with a listed building

and you're changing its use
or adapting it to something,

you should work with
the building,

with the architecture.

Now, that's not the same
as continuing

exactly the same architecture.

That's a pastiche, if you like,
or whatever you want to call it.

It's more about respecting it.

So it's...it's not sort of well,

I can make some amazing
intervention

that's all about me.

That's not what we're
trying to do.

We're trying to create - I'd say

yes, there are interventions,
but it's something

that when you walk into
Battersea Power Station,

we want you to know

that you're always
in Battersea Power Station.

And I've always felt that
in order to do that you need

spaces that are major scale,
huge scale.

And you always want to be able
to see significant elements

of the historic fabric.

- This is the new...the
cathedral of the 20th century.

I think the challenge

and the interesting part
of this project is the fact

that here we are touching
the industrial heritage.

And we have a fantastic
relationship

with historic England
on the project,

for one probably simply reason
which is,

they are very nervous
about all this amazing heritage.

Industrial heritage,
that we have in this country.

And in many other country,
but which are very difficult

to stack up financially
to repair them, to restore them.

So, if we can prove that we make
a success out of that project.

I think it's great for
the future of those buildings,

because they are what we are
dealing with now

in the 20th century and 21st
century.

Narrator: Having sourced
the bricks to match

those used on Battersea Power
Station 90 years before,

made new chimneys just as they
did in the 1930s.

And agreed what would go inside

all that was left to do
was to get on and build it.

It soon emerged
that the renovation

of Battersea Power Station would
become one of the most ambitious

building projects in London,
if not in Britain.

All eight billion pounds worth.

There was asbestos
to be removed,

lead from what remained
of the roof,

and walls that threatened
to collapse at any moment.

[soft upbeat music]

The real biggest challenge
is...is the construction.

I mean, it's an enormously
complicated building

to...to work on as something
like 2,500 people on site.

And the logistics
of the construction is...

..is mind-bogglingly
challenging.

- This is the largest single
brick structure in Europe.

6,000 bricks.

We've had to fire and make
another 1.7 million bricks

in imperial size.

We've got 2,400 operatives
on the site.

There's 24,000 tonnes of steel.

That's twice as many
as the Shard.

We can fit
Saint Paul's Cathedral

within the boiler house.

It's immense.
There are 17 tower frames.

There are 48 hoists.
There's an immense statistics.

It's 4 million square feet.
There's retail.

It's a shopping mall.
There's residential.

There's commercial office.
It's got every product type.

It's a wonderful building.

Narrator: The list goes on.

In comes a 62 tonne beam,

an operation that's been
months in the planning.

It will be positioned at
the southern end

of the turbine hall and allow
the spaces

Jim Eyre has designed to be
uncluttered by columns.

[soft upbeat music]

- The key driver for this beam

was that we installed
it in one go.

Driving a 27 metre long beam

through to London
is exceptionally complex.

Driving it through the site
itself is equally complex.

Narrator: This huge beam

requires an equally huge crane
to lift it.

One of the largest in Europe.

- It has to land on only 300
mil of concrete.

So we've had to come up
with a rocker plate detail.

- This is a wonderful feeling,
not just for me,

and the whole of the Battersea
team,

but for all the tradesmen
and designers involved in it.

This is a major stepping
stone in the journey

of bringing the power station
back to life.

- The planning involved in
the erection of tower crane 15

has been meticulous.

Just on the pure lifting alone
we have over 200 operatives

working on a lifting plan,
a lifting strategy,

making sure it's carried out
to absolute precision.

- We have been absolutely flat
out over the last few weeks,

getting all the temporary works
in place

to install one of the biggest
cranes in Europe.

- We have 16 tower cranes.

Which is the most tower cranes
on any construction site

in the UK at present.

A lot of, um,
tower crane drivers on site.

We've got 44 at present day
and night working 24 hours.

[soft upbeat music]

- The tree cones will be used
to create an extraordinary feel

to the power station.

Within the boiler house,

they'll enable a grid free
column structure

which that gives
a light and airy feel.

It'll be truly finish a unique
part of the event centre.

- This whole crane operation

has been an absolute credit
to the entire team down here.

Who've made sure that all of
the temporary works is in place.

Really importantly, all
the works can carry on safely

around the boiler house.

Narrator:
All this demands precision.

One of the greatest fears
of architects

is that the components they draw

are not made to the exact
specification,

or are not fitted
properly when they arrive.

A good reason for having those
30 architects on site.

And an added complication
at Battersea

new beams are being slotted
in among the old.

As soon as you start working
on site,

you also start
the demolition component.

And so to test some
of the components'

structural integrity
of component

you have to take on some time
to take on some breaks.

So, therefore you discover
other elements

of the building fabric itself
has evolved during that period.

So you have to adapt
your design.

So one - the first component
is think about

robust sample design element,
that's the first thing.

The second element is making
sure

that you have another
adaptable design.

So, I think be prepared
and aware that actually,

when you deal with a structure
like that,

and a building like that
you will have some element

that you will have to evolve
and change.

And I think the plan
has been very good to understand

that and to understand
that the best approach

is to be flexible,
and also with the contractor.

Because suddenly when
you...when you feel,

when you realise that your wall
is much weaker

than what you thought
it was gonna be.

Well, then you know
that that might have an impact

on the logistics, that might
have an impact on the programme.

So, therefore if you don't want
to pick up a delay out of that,

you might have to change
something,

or to simplify something against
it.

- The job of our team on site is
to stay on top of everything.

Well, first of all,
it's everything

that comes back from contractors
and all the various suppliers.

The various proposals, 'cause
there will be, I don't know,

100,000 drawings produced
by suppliers and contractors.

That we have to check against
our work

and keep steering them towards,
you know, what we designed.

'Cause in a way, what we've
designed is what's been bought.

[laughs] So that's what we want
to see happen.

- It's an adventure. It's
a human adventure, you know,

dealing with a project
like that.

I mean, first of all,
I've been involved on it,

on the project,
since the first drawing line.

Since the first sketches that
we did, which was back in 2013.

So it's already more than three
years, close to four years now.

And we are going to get involved
for another two or three years.

So you have to actually...
keep sane

and keep motivated
and keep positive about it.

Because you have
a lot of challenges.

And it's - my moment,
very tense.

Because you know, from one hand,
you have the client

who just realised that sometimes
there is some discovery

and something you didn't know,
nobody knew about the building,

and that's a discovery which
is going to have consequences.

And also you know,
that things evolve.

So you know,
we have trade contractor,

which haven't performed more
another - you know,

when you...have a long term
project like that,

you do have to be on it
for the long run.

So yes, you have to keep all
the components in your head

and it's a challenge.

And also you have to rely
on the fact that...

..it's a team thing, you know?

If you...if you haven't got
a fantastic team around you,

if you haven't got amazing
people around you

a project like that can't
happen.

Narrator:
23 floors above the ground

there's a good view
of how the area

around Battersea Power
Station is being regenerated.

The new American Embassy
is complete.

At the Power Station itself

there are four more phases
to come

involving architects such as
Norman Foster and Frank Gehry.

And of course, phase one,
Circus West by Ian Simpson

is complete and occupied.

They're been criticisms,

not enough affordable housing
in the scheme.

A concern
of the London Mayor.

Too many of the high-end flats
being sold overseas.

The apartment blocks are too
close to the Power Station,

affecting its monumentality.

But Historic England recognised
that a balance

had to be struck between letting
the old building fall down

and allowing development
next door

in order to fund
its restoration.

- We've made no secret
of the fact

this is a very expensive
building.

And the only way,
the only way

you could do what we're doing
here,

which is bringing it back
to life.

For all of London forever,
so to speak,

has been that we have had
another

36 acres of land around it.

Which we could build
sympathetic buildings,

those that help fund
this building on its own.

To stand alone, on its own,

it would have been beyond
challenging.

But as part of a bigger master
plan,

a bigger mixed use town centre
for London,

then it becomes
feasible and plausible.

- The big test is
when the public are allowed in,

and you will come out either
on the riverfront

or on the South front.

You'll see this gargantuan
building towering above you,

and I think that will be a great
thrill.

And then you'll go inside
and see how, you know,

the great central hall which was
just a tangle of pipes.

You know, which was the boiler
house is now, you know,

full of activity and life where
the turbine hall is restored.

I think it's going
to be a great moment.

It's one of the largest ever
attempted pieces

of urban regeneration
in a single building.

Narrator: Those behind
the regeneration

of Battersea Power Station argue
that you will still view

this iconic structure
from the Thames.

And from the Embankment on
the opposite side of the river.

Where once coal was delivered
to fire this monster,

more than a million tonnes every
year.

Will be gardens and reflecting
pools, and people.

In a few years Nine Elms will
have been transformed

from a wasteland to an area
occupied

by thousands of workers
and residents.

They've even extended
the Northern Line

and created a new stop.

But what will it look like?

With a year to go,
it's still difficult to read

the interior of the power
station,

to imagine how it will look.

But slowly the exterior
is emerging.

Jim Eyre's tall thin windows
inspired by Scott.

The new apartments poking above
the old roof line,

all designed to transform
this London landmark.

- Ultimately it's that thing
when you see

the thing taking shape on sight.

And you start to even in
the skeletal form

of just structure,
you start to think,

yes, that's - we drew that.

We drew that and here it is

and it's beginning to look like
that

and isn't it an amazing
scale or an extraordinary space?

To finally, you know,
the thing is finished.

And the real pleasure I think
is when people go in.

You see the public go in
particularly for a building

that's publicly accessible.

And the sort of the oohs
and ahs, as it were,

of when people like what you've
done.

I mean, that is fantastic.
It's a great feeling.

We really like the idea
in architecture

particularly in our buildings
and spaces we create

that they're spiritually
uplifting.

That's kind of fundamental.

You want people to feel better

when they go into one of your
buildings, or when they see one.

Narrator: At the end,

it will have taken eight years
to restore

Battersea Power Station
and the surrounding area.

Sir Giles Gilbert Scott
went on to become

President of the Royal Institute
of British Architects.

He designed the chamber
of the House of Commons

destroyed during the Blitz
and Bankside Power Station,

now Tate Modern
before his death in 1960.

And Battersea, like his red
telephone box,

has become an enduring symbol
of industrial design.

Captioned by Ai-Media
ai-media.tv

Narrator: Next time...

in the six months after the new
V&A Museum in Dundee opened,

half a million people
walked through its doors.

Those behind this project,

the first V&A
to be built outside London,

were overwhelmed,
but not surprised.

They'd felt all along
that a signature building

by the Japanese architect
Kengo Kuma

on Dundee's waterfront

could trigger the regeneration
of this city,

spoiled by insensitive
development in the 1960s.

In Dundee's brave new world,
people would come here

to learn more about
Scotland's design heritage

in a structure that is itself
a piece of design,

a piece of art,
with its own story.

What I want to do
is work with the community

to respect the place

and to learn something
from the place.

It is a kind of conversation
with the community,

conversation with the place.