Power plant ‘Alienworks’

This power plant was built to power a steel factory dating back to the late 1800’s. The main feature here was the blast furnace which made ‘pig iron’, the intermediate product after smelting iron ore. In the 1960’s, after a steel crisis, the production of cast iron was concentrated to this one factory as it was highly modernised and standing at an efficient location. In the 1970’s one of the major blast furnaces of the company burned down and they couldn’t completely recover to produce the quality and quantity they once did. The factory was closed in the early 1990’s under pressure of the surrounding residents, who were battling to have the unhealthy and environment damaging factory shut down completely. Most of the blast furnaces were demolished, except for one that became a monument. Some buildings remain, including this power plant. The pseudonym used by the community is ‘Alienworks’, coming from a piece of graffiti saying ‘alien workshop’.

Though there have been so many modernisations, a lot of the beautiful ancient architecture is still there. It’s basically one big and quite empty hall but I enjoyed it more than I had expected.