The Scramble for Wealth

We must expect for a long time yet to see capitalists still striving to obtain the highest possible profits.

Lots Road Power Station, Kensington & Chelsea, SW10

But observe, that the passion for wealth is certainly in some senses new. It grew up very rapidly at the beginning of the present century; it was not so strong in the last century, when men were much more content to lead a quiet easy life of leisure.

Lots Road Power Station, Kensington & Chelsea, SW10

The change has really influenced the relations between men; but in the future it is quite possible that the scramble for wealth may grow less intense, and a change in the opposite direction take place.

From Arnold Toynbee’s Lectures on The Industrial Revolution in England (1884)

Battersea Power Station

Battersea Power Station has always had an unusual grip on the popular imagination. In 1928, when construction began, the Archbishop of Canterbury led a popular revolt against such a belching, toxic thing in the centre of the city.

Battersea Power Station, Kirtling Street, Wandsworth, SW8

By 1939, six years after this 400,000kW ‘flaming altar of modern power’ came on stream, pumping electricity down copper wires and puffing lightly laundered sulphur into the atmosphere…

Battersea Power Station, Kirtling Street, Wandsworth, SW8

…an architectural magazine had voted it the second-best building of the 20th century.

From Stephen Bayley’s More Power to His Elbow, The Guardian (2006)