Kelenföld Power Station is an abandoned power plant control room in Hungary. Built in the 1920s, it’s a beautiful example of Art Deco industrial architecture and features a dramatic oval-shaped room lit by a large skylight. The plant originally ran on coal but was converted to natural gas in the 1970s. Much of the original control equipment remains intact on the green metal wall panels. A concrete bunker housed an air raid shelter during World War 2, underscoring the control room’s role in a critical infrastructure at a turbulent time.
Designed by two prominent Hungarian architects, site is protected under Hungarian law and so cannot be demolished. This does mean it also can’t be restored and maintenance is difficult. It is occasionally open to tours and also film shoots, apparently.
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The full powerplant is not abandoned, only these parts are not used anymore, but they don’t demolish them because it’s a protected monument.
Originally it was a coal powerplant, in the 1970s they switched to gas, adn these control rooms not used since that. They also use it for district heating nowadays.
Hungarian wiki is also very detailed about it: https://hu.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelenföldi_Erőmű
You can try to read it with an online translator: https://hu-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Kelenföldi_Erőmű?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=hu&_x_tr_pto=wapp
district heating
How big an area? I’ve only seen that on college campuses and military bases before in the US.
In Europe those often cover whole cities.
That’s cool. Good use of waste heat. We’re too NIMBY and adverse to paying for infrastructure that takes time to pay off. Much more efficient to do it centrally and extract power than use cooling towers at power plants and wasting your exhaust heat out of chimneys in home furnaces.
4 huge housing estates with “commie blocks” get heating from here, and a lot of older parts of Buda was retrofitted with district heating in the 70s. I couldn’t find exact numbers, but around 1-200000 people live in these parts of the city.
I love art deco. In Amsterdam, you have this beautiful cinema called Tuschinski. That is really nice as well:
I love Art Deco too. I’ve been to the Atlas Bar in Singapore which is amazing.
It looks beautiful! I would love to see it in real life sometime.
That link 404s for me, is it all there?
Ah, it’s at https://www.amsterdamsights.com/nightlife/tuschinski.html
Sorry, something went wrong with the copying and pasting. I fixed it now. Thanks!
This picture reminds me of the latest Loki lesson
Even though the control room doesn’t fulfill its function, it’s sometimes being used as scenography for various movies. Spy, Dracula, and the Chernobyl Diaries were recorded there.
More images from Kelenföld Power Plant https://www.urbex-travel.com/kelenfold-power-plant/
Thanks! I’d originally found this under the name “Special k” but I discovered it’s Kelenföld and edited in some other links in as you were posting.
We really need more art deco in the world.
Why did we stop making stuff sick like this?
I’m guessing it’s expensive, like all the Gothic embellishments?? I’ve no real experience out data, though - just a hunch
I mean you’re definitely right in that the answer in one form another is money, but lame
Most of the walls are the control system of the power plant. Those were much more analog. Nowadays digital SCADA systems control the plant, and you can fit the same amount of information in just few PC displays, because in PC you can just jump between screens digitally.
That ceiling is definitely just artistic, and it does look awesome.
So that architecture wouldn’t hold the same technical responsibility and it would take less effort to make it look nice!
Bioshock vibes
Very cool! Looks very similar (albeit fancier) to Fawley power plant (sadly demolished) in the UK. I was lucky enough to spend some time there and had an amazing time exploring and sliding around the polished floor on office chairs!
Wasn’t that used in the new Munsters remake?
This is lovely - thank you for sharing it!
This is such a cool place. I went to a concert here years ago, it has surprisingly good acoustics too!
I think the game Soma used this location in one of their set pieces. At least it looks very familiar.
Looks like a brilliant location for a music video shoot
