By Courtney E. Smith
London’s iconic Battersea Power Station is set to be demolished, CNN reports.
The building’s notable chimneys, which have had cameos in the Beatles’ Help!, Judas Priest‘s “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming” video and perhaps most notably on the cover of Pink Floyd’s 1977 album Animals, will be torn down only to be rebuilt by developers, to preserve their iconic look in the creation of a new mixed use facility being built in their place.
“The chimneys are the most powerful part of the icon,” Jim Eyre, director of Wilkinson Eyre, told CNN. “Take them away, and you don’t have an icon. The coal fumes has decayed the concrete, so they have to come down. But we’re going to painstakingly reconstruct them.”
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The old power station, which was built in the 1930s, will be replaced with a building that will house “retail space, offices and luxury ‘villas.'” The project’s first phase is scheduled to be complete in 2016.
In April of 2014, the Battersea Power Station Development Company organized the first in what it says will be an annual party at the plant “to celebrate the iconic building’s ongoing development and welcome its future community.” Elton John performed for guests including Grace Jones, Jeremy Renner and Kit Harrington from Game of Thrones.
Getty Images captured the first wave of demolition on Aug. 19.
The early stages in the demolition and rebuilding of Battersea Power Station’s chimneys takes place on August 19, 2014 in London, England. As part of the extensive redevelopment of Battersea Power Station, the four iconic chimneys will be entirely rebuilt over the course of the next two years. The regeneration of the 42-acre Battersea Power Station site will see the construction of over 1,300 homes, a 160 room hotel and 350,000 sq ft. of retail and restaurant space. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)
As for the infamous pig immortalized on the cover of Animals as well? Bought by the String Cheese Incident in the early 2000s.
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