#industrial-heritage

#industrial-heritage

The world's oldest surviving gasholder is to be restored and repurposed as part of a housing development in west London. Hammersmith & Fulham Council has approved plans that will see the Grade II* listed Gasholder No.2 at King's Road Park restored, securing the future of a structure that will soon reach its 200th birthday. Built between 1829 and 1830, Gasholder No.2 is believed to be the oldest surviving gasholder in the world.

The scheme features a retractable roof and a movable pitch, allowing it to accommodate both sporting and non-sporting events. The bowl is configured to bring seating as close to the field as regulations allow, with a steep profile intended to enhance spatial intensity. Acoustic performance was a central consideration, with the design aiming to concentrate sound within the stadium while minimizing noise impacts on the surrounding neighborhood.

It was thrown up in the 1870s by Samuel Cunliffe Lister, and for more than a century was one of the great industrial palaces of the north. Since shutting in 1999, about half has been restored as offices and high-end flats; the other half is derelict. Forests of buddleia cover the concrete floors, and fox trails wind through the weeds. Peer through steel grilles into the basements, and see hart's-tongue ferns as thick and green as cabbages in a vegetable patch.

Since its first edition in 1987, the Sea Art Festival has become one of Busan's most important art events. Against a coastline backdrop, the festival uses its unique format to reinterpret its natural surroundings, explore diverse marine ecological issues and through its collaboration with local fishing communities, bring the public closer to art. Titled 'Undercurrents: Waves Walking on the Water', this year's edition returns to Dadaepo Beach and surrounding areas, thematizing the invisible forces operating beneath the surface, both ecologically and culturally.

Considering its industrial heritage, it's probably no surprise that this short passage once had a pub at one end, and a temperance movement at the other.