Gehry firm to design part of Battersea plant redevelopment

Frank Gehry's architecture firm, Foster and Partners, will design a shopping street and apartment buildings as part of London's Battersea Power Station redevelopment.

It will be Gehry’s first project in the UK capital. The firm will design 1,200 apartments, a 200-room hotel and 350,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, London-based Battersea Power Station Development Company said in a statement today.

The historically protected power station, featured on the cover of Pink Floyd's 1977 album Animals, was bought by a group of Malaysian investors led by SP Setia Bhd and Sime Darby Bhd last year for £400 million.

The site had previously been owned by a subsidiary of Treasury Holdings controlled by property developers Johnny Rohan and Richard Barrett.

Treasury had planned to spend £5.5 billion building 3,500 homes and 1.7 million sq ft of office space, as well as hotels and retail units.

However, its plans fell foul of the property crash and Treasury itself was wounded up last year with its loans taken over by Nama.

Gehry, winner of the 1989 Pritzker Prize for architecture, is known for projects including the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, the Dancing House in Prague and Disney Hall in Los Angeles.

The design firms will cooperate on a shopping street in the Battersea project's third phase and they will each build one residential area near the retail center, according to the statement. The area is part of the Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea Opportunity Area south of the River Thames, London' largest urban redevelopment.

In addition to homes and shops, it includes a new US embassy and an extension of the London underground. The Battersea Power Station master plan, designed by Rafel Vinoly, spans 39 acres and includes more than 3,400 homes as well as offices and retail space, according to today’s statement.

The completed development will be worth £8 billion, SP Setia and Sime Darby said last year. “Our goal is to help create a neighborhood and a place for people to live that respects the iconic Battersea Power Station while connecting it into the broader fabric of the city,” Gehry said in the statement.

Bloomberg