Special K is an abandoned power plant control room in Hungary. Built in the 1920s, it was a pioneering example of Art Deco industrial architecture and featured a dramatic oval-shaped room lit by a large skylight. The plant originally ran on coal but was converted to natural gas in the 1970s. Much of the original control equipment remains intact on the green metal wall panels. A concrete bunker housed an air raid shelter during World War 2, underscoring the control room’s role in a critical infrastructure at a turbulent time.
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The full powerplant is not abandoned, only these parts are not used anymore, but they don’t demolish them because it’s a protected monument.
Originally it was a coal powerplant, in the 1970s they switched to gas, adn these control rooms not used since that. They also use it for district heating nowadays.
Hungarian wiki is also very detailed about it: https://hu.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelenföldi_Erőmű
You can try to read it with an online translator: https://hu-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Kelenföldi_Erőmű?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=hu&_x_tr_pto=wapp
district heating
How big an area? I’ve only seen that on college campuses and military bases before in the US.
In Europe those often cover whole cities.
That’s cool. Good use of waste heat. We’re too NIMBY and adverse to paying for infrastructure that takes time to pay off. Much more efficient to do it centrally and extract power than use cooling towers at power plants and wasting your exhaust heat out of chimneys in home furnaces.
Very cool! Looks very similar (albeit fancier) to Fawley power plant (sadly demolished) in the UK. I was lucky enough to spend some time there and had an amazing time exploring and sliding around the polished floor on office chairs!
This is such a cool place. I went to a concert here years ago, it has surprisingly good acoustics too!
Bioshock vibes
This picture reminds me of the latest Loki lesson
Looks like a brilliant location for a music video shoot
I love art deco. In Amsterdam, you have this beautiful cinema called Tuschinski. That is really nice as well:
I love Art Deco too. I’ve been to the Atlas Bar in Singapore which is amazing.
It looks beautiful! I would love to see it in real life sometime.
That link 404s for me, is it all there?
Ah, it’s at https://www.amsterdamsights.com/nightlife/tuschinski.html
Sorry, something went wrong with the copying and pasting. I fixed it now. Thanks!
This is lovely - thank you for sharing it!
We really need more art deco in the world.
I think the game Soma used this location in one of their set pieces. At least it looks very familiar.
