Three Windows at Shimizusawa Thermal Power Plant, three tall windows line the control room wall, their steel-mullioned.

Series · 10 prints

Shimizusawa Thermal Power Plant

Photographed 2016
Frames 10
Camera NIKON D810
Location Hokkaido, Japan
Status Preserved and operated for guided tours and art exhibitions by Shimizusawa Project from 2011
Years 1926 to 1991
Specs 6,000 kW initial output · 74,500 kW peak main plant · Coal-fired thermal
01 ABOUT THIS SERIES

Series story

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

Shimizusawa Thermal Power Plant ran in the Shimizusawa district of Yubari, on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido, from 1926 to 1991. It was built and operated by the Hokkaido Colliery and Steamship Company, known locally as Hokutan, alongside the coal mines that supplied its fuel. It was reportedly the largest privately owned power generation plant in Japan at peak.

Initial output was six thousand kilowatts in 1926. By the early 1960s, after a pulverised-fuel upgrade, the main plant pushed seventy-four and a half thousand kilowatts and an auxiliary plant added forty-nine and a half thousand more by burning natural gas captured from the surrounding coal workings. The Shimizusawa Dam, built in 1940, supplied cooling water to the plant and a small two-thousand-kilowatt hydroelectric generator alongside it. Hokutan operated the plant for sixty-five years before closure in 1991. Demolition was planned but halted in 2011 by the Shimizusawa Project, which has been reopening parts of the site for reservation-only tours and small-scale art events ever since.

Metropolis Japan (Hokutan Shimizusawa Power Plant) and Atlas Obscura (Shimizusawa Thermal Power Plant)

02 TIMELINE

Chronology

1926
1940
1960
1991
2011
03 PRINTS

Prints in this series

Three Windows at Shimizusawa Thermal Power Plant, three tall windows line the control room wall, their steel-mullioned.
Three Windows
Meters at Shimizusawa Thermal Power Plant, a metre board salvaged from the former control room.
Meters
Shimizusawa Power Plant at Shimizusawa Thermal Power Plant, in the middle of the frame on the banks of the Yubari river is.
Shimizusawa Power Plant
Render at Shimizusawa Thermal Power Plant, exposed 1920s' brickwork.
Render
Spillway at Shimizusawa Thermal Power Plant, a partially opened spillway releasing water into the Yubari river.
Spillway
Control Room Window at Shimizusawa Thermal Power Plant, a window of the control room which used to look over the turbine.
Control Room Window
Control Room Mezzanine at Shimizusawa Thermal Power Plant, a ladder leading to a mezzanine above the former control room.
Control Room Mezzanine
Switchboard at Shimizusawa Thermal Power Plant, an old switchboard made entirely of marble.
Switchboard
Stool at Shimizusawa Thermal Power Plant, an old, handmade stool, possibly pre-war.
Stool
South East Control Room at Shimizusawa Thermal Power Plant, a hole has been made in the left wall which was used to remove.
South East Control Room
04 ABOUT THE PRINTS

How they’re made

Paper

Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm. Metallic Gloss 260 gsm for acrylic-mounted prints.

Sizes

Five sizes, XS to XL, from $100. Open editions in XS and S, limited editions in M, L and XL.

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Production

Made to order in 5 to 10 business days.