Boiler House Basement

Provenance

Camera: NIKON D810
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Settings: 14mm · f/8.0 · 6s · ISO 100
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

The boiler house basement at Morwell Power Station and Briquette Factories, where a rust-scaled flanged pipe cuts diagonally across the concrete floor toward a metal staircase rising to grating platforms. An electrical control box is mounted to a vertical support. The level sat beneath the water tube boilers that burned brown coal in the complex.

Edition

Open edition

Open edition
Printed to order, no fixed quantity. Each print is hand-signed by the photographer.

Limited edition
A fixed number of prints exist. Once sold, the edition closes permanently. Each print is individually numbered and signed.

$100.00 AUD

Colour

Signed, numbered, with COA. Made to order in 10 to 20 business days (framed). Shipped in protective packaging with edition certificate, paper-stock reference and a printed care guide.

See certificate sample →

Shipping Free shipping over $250. Ships worldwide, rates calculated at checkout.

Returns Damaged in transit? We replace it. Full policy →

Ships within 10 business days · signed & numbered

In situ

01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title: Boiler House Basement
Series: Morwell Power Station
Catalogue: MPS-048
Process: Giclée
Captured: 15 April 2017
Camera: NIKON D810
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture: f/8.0
Shutter: 6s s
ISO: 100
Focal length: 14 mm
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Paper size: 290 × 200 mm
Location: Morwell, Victoria, Australia
Authenticity: C2PA verified provenance →
Recognised by: Highly Commended in Multimedia at the 2016 National Trust of Australia (NSW) Heritage Awards

02 LOCATION

Morwell, Victoria, Australia

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

A rust-scaled flanged pipe cuts diagonally across the concrete floor of the boiler house basement at Morwell Power Station and Briquette Factories, running the eye toward a metal staircase that climbs to perforated grating platforms above. An electrical control box mounts to a vertical support on the right, one of many fittings still fixed in place across this floor. Shadows from the overhead structure fall hard across the dust-covered ground, tracing the geometry of the space. The light is overhead and broken, the floor open and grey.

This level sat beneath the water tube boilers that burned brown coal at the complex, plant the Victorian Heritage Register cites as a rare survivor of its class. The boilers, ash handling, steel chimneys and building were supplied by Mitchell Engineering Group Ltd. of London under the 1950 contract. The basement carried the flanged pipework and supports that fed and drained the boilers above. The last boiler and turbine were taken off on 8 September 2014. Brett photographed the boiler house basement on 15 April 2017, in the closed plant before the demolition program began.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

Brown coal dust settled on everything in the lower levels and stayed there. That particular orange-brown gets into things permanently. Nothing in the boiler house basement was ever truly clean.

Brett Patman

The series

Morwell Power Station

1949-2014 · 79 photographs

The State Electricity Commission of Victoria built Morwell as the centrepiece of its postwar plan to sever Victoria's reliance on black coal from New South Wales. Construction ran from 1949 to 1959; electricity production commenced in December 1958 and the first commercial briquettes followed in December 1959. With the demolition of Old Yallourn between 1995 and 1999, Morwell became the earliest surviving large-scale Victorian state-grid power station, registered on the Victorian Heritage Register as H2377 on 1 March 2018.

View all in this series →

05 SIZE GUIDE

Print sizes

The anatomy view shows what this finish is as a physical object: paper margin, mat band, frame depth, acrylic profile. The comparison strip shows how each size sits relative to the others at true scale. Click a size or a finish to update both.