Three Windows

Three tall industrial windows at Shimizusawa Thermal Power Plant run along one wall of an interior bay, the steel-framed glazing reaching from above head height to near the ceiling. The frames are painted in the standard industrial green of the Hokutan-era plant, weathered to bare metal at the seams. Most of the glass panes are intact; a few are broken or replaced with plywood. The windows admit the daylight from the river side of the building, the diffuse Hokkaido light falling across the empty floor below. The wall around the windows is brick at the lower courses, rendered above. The brickwork is the original 1926 build.

Shimizusawa Thermal Power Plant was built in 1926 by the Hokutan coal company to burn local coal and supply power to the mines and the town of Yubari. The plant ran for sixty-five years, finally closing in 1991 when the last of the Yubari mines shut and the demand for industrial power on the site disappeared. The three windows in this photograph admitted the light that the operators worked under across that whole span. They have stayed in place since the plant closed. The render around them has weathered; the glass and the framing remain.