Original subtitles

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.