Boiler House Mezzanine

Provenance

Camera: NIKON D810
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Settings: 14mm · f/5.6 · 1/20 · ISO 1600
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

The boilerhouse mezzanine at White Bay Power Station, where steel beams, grating and mechanical parts run across the upper levels. Heavy gears and levers sit where they were left, and metal chutes and pipes drop away overhead. Light shifts through the tall industrial windows onto the rust and dust that have settled over all of it.

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 5 to 10 business days (unframed). Shipped in protective packaging with edition certificate, paper-stock reference and a printed care guide.

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In situ

Boiler House Mezzanine at White Bay Power Station, black-framed print displayed in situ on a wall.

Boiler House Mezzanine at White Bay Power Station, raw timber-framed print displayed in situ on a wall.

Boiler House Mezzanine at White Bay Power Station, glass print displayed in situ on a wall.

01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title: Boiler House Mezzanine
Series: White Bay Power Station
Catalogue: WBP-100
Process: Giclée
Captured: 27 May 2016
Camera: NIKON D810
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter: 1/20 s
ISO: 1600
Focal length: 14 mm
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Paper size: 297 × 210 mm
Location: Rozelle, New South Wales, Australia
Authenticity: C2PA verified provenance →
Recognised by: Highly Commended in Multimedia at the 2016 National Trust of Australia (NSW) Heritage Awards

02 LOCATION

Rozelle, New South Wales, Australia

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

A mezzanine level in the boiler house at White Bay Power Station runs along one wall of the bay at about half-roof height, set on steel framing and supported by columns from the floor below. The mezzanine carries instrument cabinets and the boiler-feed control panels, with the operator's working position on the steel-grating decking. Cabling runs along the underside of the mezzanine to the panels above. The handrails along the open side of the mezzanine are painted in the standard pale industrial green of the plant, worn back to bare metal at the grip line. The view from the mezzanine takes in the boiler bay below, including the void where Boiler No. 2 once stood.

Mezzanines like this one were the standard way of getting more useful working area into a tall single-volume industrial building. At White Bay the boiler house mezzanines carried the upper-level instrumentation and the access points for the upper drum inspections on the boilers. The mezzanine in this photograph ran continuously across the working life of the plant from 1917 to Christmas Eve 1983. After closure the mezzanine was wound down with the rest of the plant. The instrument cabinets remained on the panel; the operators stopped coming up.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

Steel grating stretches across the boiler house mezzanine, rust settling into every bar. Riveted columns and heavy I-beams rise through the frame. Gear mechanisms and control levers sit locked in position on the left, still bolted to their mountings. Overhead, conical hoppers and feed pipes hang from the steel roof structure. Light enters through tall industrial windows at the far wall, catching the pale grey of concrete and the brown of oxidised metal. The air in here smells of iron and old dust.

Brett Patman

The series

White Bay Power Station

124 photographs

White Bay Power Station is a former coal-fired power station on Wanngal Country at Rozelle, at the head of White Bay on Sydney Harbour, built to power Sydney's trams and suburban trains and in service from May 1917 until December 1983. The New South Wales Department of Railways designed it in its own drawing office and began building in June 1912. The turbine hall, boilerhouse, switch house and control room stand on a 38,000 square metre site behind two steel chimney stacks, the main steelwork stamped with British manufacturers' names.

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.