Old electrical thingy.
Yesterday we had a rare day out and we visited the Brisbane Powerhouse at New Farm, which in bygone times was actually the Brisbane City Council's New Farm Powerhouse that supplied power to Brisbane's long gone and longer lamented trams.
For many years it sat rusting and deteriorating, until someone with a bright idea got it accepted and it was turned into a performing arts venue. A lot of the building was torn down and the majority of the generation equipment including turbines, gensets and associated switchyard were ripped out. But the building which has had a remarkable transformation is not only a great performance space inside but still retains its bones and the odd bits and pieces including murals and also the odd unexpected humour which I will get too another time. Of course, it also has admin offices and a lot of artsy people suitably attired in black! Needless to say, we stood out as the old people who have bumbled in, just as we are and did!
It is open to the public to stroll around although this is the first time we have ever been inside despite how long it has been open. It also has lovely clean toilets (well, that's practical isn't it?), a great cafe and it sits on the Brisbane River with a fabulous outlook and is embraced by New Farm Park. It also has great shows.
I worked in the Electricity Department of the Brisbane City Council until it was morphed into a Queensland Government Board and late a Government Owned Enterprise and used to visit fellow staff in one of the outbuildings in my younger years but never got to see inside whilst the Powerhouse proper laid idle before the refurb. What a place with all that abandoned gear to have seen and indeed, taken some pictures of. But all is not lost, as I said much of its bones are still part of the new venue, rusting and/or deteriorating mysteriously for all to see and enjoy. The main performance space is in the old turbine hall. And here is just a little bit, a total unidentified electrical object or UEO. And it's not even live so if you should manage to reach out and thrust a finger in, you will live to tell the tale.
Old electrical thingy.
Yesterday we had a rare day out and we visited the Brisbane Powerhouse at New Farm, which in bygone times was actually the Brisbane City Council's New Farm Powerhouse that supplied power to Brisbane's long gone and longer lamented trams.
For many years it sat rusting and deteriorating, until someone with a bright idea got it accepted and it was turned into a performing arts venue. A lot of the building was torn down and the majority of the generation equipment including turbines, gensets and associated switchyard were ripped out. But the building which has had a remarkable transformation is not only a great performance space inside but still retains its bones and the odd bits and pieces including murals and also the odd unexpected humour which I will get too another time. Of course, it also has admin offices and a lot of artsy people suitably attired in black! Needless to say, we stood out as the old people who have bumbled in, just as we are and did!
It is open to the public to stroll around although this is the first time we have ever been inside despite how long it has been open. It also has lovely clean toilets (well, that's practical isn't it?), a great cafe and it sits on the Brisbane River with a fabulous outlook and is embraced by New Farm Park. It also has great shows.
I worked in the Electricity Department of the Brisbane City Council until it was morphed into a Queensland Government Board and late a Government Owned Enterprise and used to visit fellow staff in one of the outbuildings in my younger years but never got to see inside whilst the Powerhouse proper laid idle before the refurb. What a place with all that abandoned gear to have seen and indeed, taken some pictures of. But all is not lost, as I said much of its bones are still part of the new venue, rusting and/or deteriorating mysteriously for all to see and enjoy. The main performance space is in the old turbine hall. And here is just a little bit, a total unidentified electrical object or UEO. And it's not even live so if you should manage to reach out and thrust a finger in, you will live to tell the tale.