Main Press Floor

Provenance

Camera: NIKON D810
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Settings: 14mm · f/8.0 · 0.4s · ISO 100
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

The main press floor in the briquette factory at Morwell Power Station and Briquette Factories, a long receding row of green flywheel covers under a sawtooth roof with strip skylights. A brick operator's cabin with a yellow door stands mid distance on the left, where duty staff sat during operations. The presses were the heart of the briquetting line.

Edition

Open edition

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In situ

01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title: Main Press Floor
Series: Morwell Power Station
Catalogue: MPS-067
Process: Giclée
Captured: 15 April 2017
Camera: NIKON D810
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture: f/8.0
Shutter: 0.4s 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

The main press floor at Morwell Power Station and Briquette Factories runs deep into the building, a long row of large green flywheel covers receding under a sawtooth roof with strip skylights overhead. The worn concrete carries scattered debris and a single red object in the foreground. A brick operator's cabin stands mid distance on the left, its yellow door closed, where duty staff sat during operations. A control panel occupies the left wall near the front of the floor. The skylights drop even daylight along the full run of press covers.

The briquetting presses were supplied by Maschinenfabrik Buckau R. Wolf A.G. of Germany under the 1950 contract, for two factories rated at 2,100 tons a day. The Victorian Heritage Register records the plant as the only remaining intact assemblage of mid twentieth century briquetting machinery in Victoria. The presses ran on paired 12 hour crews, with floor wash downs at shift change over, and briquette flow ran continuously through the multi level factories until the 2014 closure. Brett photographed the main press floor on 15 April 2017, in the closed briquette factory before the demolition program began.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

Large green steel housings sit at sharp angles along the concrete floor, their surfaces dulled by a film of grime and coal dust. Overhead, steel roof trusses span the full width of the hall. Clerestory windows let in pale, flat light. An electrical control panel mounted to a column on the right still holds its coloured buttons and switches. Pipework and yellow safety rails run the length of the upper gantry. The floor is bare concrete, cracked and stained dark.

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.