Masterpiece of Industrial Architecture

Combustion plants have been in the centre of discussions for long. Someone is against, someone is not. Some people alarm about emissions, others just build them. 2500 plants in the world, 140 plants are planned to be built only in Europe. They work in Paris, Antwerp, Copenhagen, Monaco...

But even in this sphere there is a place for beauty and design.

Can a utilitarian enterprise be beautiful? An Austrian architect Hundertwasserhaus was breaking stereotypes for all his life and he left not only amazing buildings but also bright unusual industrial enterprises. Like this combustion plant Maishima in Osaka.

The plant looks alien, like some amusement park that happened to be found in the functional zone.

On the contrary, opposite is another plant. There remains of waste waters are burnt. It looks like a forgotten toy of a huge baby.

Waste waters go to treatment facilities from where cleaned water goes back for industrial use. What remains are silt and waste waters sediment. They are burnt and the released energy is used for city electricity. Pay attention - there is no smoke at all despite the fact that the plant works with total power. There are emissions of course, but mainly they are carbon dioxide and water vapor. Burning is hundreds times cleaner than burial.

Two plants make a single complex that has social functions as well. There is a centre for rehabilitation of disabled persons.

The hotel for relatives of the disabled people and for business travellers.

View from the restaurant at the bridges of Osaka. You may see a big wheel - really huge construction.

Back to the combustion plant. The plant was opened in 2000 as the sign says. The architect hadn't lived half a year till the day when it opened but all his ideas came true.

Shed column

Hundertwasserhaus was desperately fighting with even surfaces everywhere where possible. The walls do not resemble corridors but look more like caves. 

The chimney like a tree grows from the soil.

The tower has no special functions but design.

Interiors are becoming only more amusive...

Model of the plant

Model of the Spittelau plant in Vienna

Plant in Osaka, the model in section.

The plant keeps pictures, sketches, models of Hundertwasserhaus.

The initial model of the plant chimney - it was denied due to high complexity and costliness.

The final variant

The first sketch made by Hundertwasserhaus

Receiving section. To prevent bad smell, low pressure is kept in the hall.

Wastes receiving bunker. The plant burns 900 tons of watses daily, i.e. about 300 000 tons a year. The bunker should provide the reserve for 3 days plant operation. So it may contain up to 2700 tons of wastes. It is about 50 carriages of trash. 

Two grab cranes provide loading of the wastes into the furnace receiving hoppers.

Operator of the crane working in an isolated room under the bunker.

Generating compartment. Here, under the green cover, there is a turbine. The steam is delivered through the silver pipe on the right. The turbine makes the generator in the blue block work. 

Display board and mechanisms for children.

Kids are allowed to turn the handles of little generators to feel what means100 Wt of energy which is enough to ignite one lamp.

When they turn them they see such fantastic flowers.

Photos of the turbine being assembled.

Through weird corridors we go to the central control desk of the plant.

Right in the "rocks" there are monitors with interesting information for schoolchildren.

The central control desk must help operators and make their life easier.

Videos from the furnace hoppers.

The plant control board looks old: all these cutouts, buttons, point indicators. It's the level of the 1970s but it still works.

Combustion plants of Osaka. In the city with population of 8 million people there are only 9 plants. And nobody protests.

Radiation and weight control

Documents are checked, the dumptruck is allowed to the territory.



Hospitable Japanese employees.

Technology is not the main thing of the plant, of course. The more important is the sunny architecture that surprisingly doesn't make the construction much more expensive.

via igergel