Palazzos of power
Subtitle: central stations of the Philadelphia Electric Company, 1900-1930
By: Aaron V. Wunsch, Joseph E.B. Elliott ; foreword by David E. Nye
Contributors: Elliott, Joseph E. B., author; Nye, David E., 1946- writer of foreword
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 157
ISBN-13: 9781616895006
Subjects: Buildings, structures; Buildings; Industrial Architecture; Electric power-plants; Philadelphia Electric Company; Pictorial works
Description: ""Majestic," "endangered", and "understudied"--Terms typically applied to endangered species - apply equally, if paradoxically, to one of the greatest sources of pollution in twentieth-century America: coal-fired metropolitan power plants. Nowhere is the building type more spectacularly present or more pressingly at risk than in Philadelphia, home to the mothballed central stations of the Philadelphia Electric Company. Monuments to the city's industrial might and suburban spread, they housed rows of ponderous boilers, turbines, and switchgear, as well as elaborate coal- and ash-handling systems. But it was these machines' neoclassical enclosures that commanded public attention. Designed to convey "solidity and immensity" in an age of deep public skepticism, they now stand vacant and decaying - a "blight" in the eyes of city planners and a beacon to urban explorers. Combining scholarly research, period illustrations, and contemporary photographs, Palazzos of Power sets Philadelphia's central stations in historical context, explains the mechanisms they housed, and records their spaces and surroundings. The book will appeal to scholarly and lay audiences"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.