Office Desk

A timber office desk at Wangi Power Station sits in one of the smaller administrative rooms, its writing surface still scattered with the residue of working use: a desk pad, a few file folders, a telephone with the receiver in its cradle. The desk is heavy office stock from the 1950s or 1960s, dark-stained timber on steel-frame legs. A swivel chair sits behind it, the upholstery cracked along the seat front. A wall calendar hangs above the desk, the year long since past. The room around the desk is institutional: vinyl tile floor, painted plasterboard walls, fluorescent overhead lighting that has failed entirely. A single window faces out onto the plant.

The administration block at Wangi Power Station handled the paperwork side of running a 330 megawatt coal-fired plant: the rosters, the maintenance reports, the procurement orders, the engineering correspondence with the Electricity Commission of NSW head office. The desk in this photograph is one of dozens like it across the block, each one belonging to a particular role across the plant's operational life from 1958 to 1986. After A Station retired in 1985 and B Station closed in 1986, the administration block was wound down. Personal effects were removed; the larger furniture and the working paperwork that was not transferred elsewhere stayed in place.