This article originates from the book Generator, published by Per Berntsen, 2008
English translation by Katia Stieglitz.
For several weeks I have had Per Berntsen’s 100 generator pictures in front of me on the desktop. I am beginning to become acquainted with the halls of machinery depicted in them. The photographs are neutral; the subjects are not ingratiating. On January 14th I paid particular attention to Hol II. On the 26th I was preoccupied with Tyin kraftverk. I know that in a while I will venture into one of the other rooms
Per Berntsen does projects. In his work Industrilandskap Grenland (2000-2001) the subject matter is taken from Norway’s largest industrial area. The images show a selection of industrial complexes, and it is difficult to infer from the photographs whether the sites are in use or abandoned. In Forandringer (2005) he documented the transformation of Rjukan over time. Using a selection of old photographs as a starting point, he analyzed his way to a precise understanding of their vantage-points such that he could shoot them again under nearly equivalent lighting conditions. The end result was a series of paired images; 30 places depicted in exactly the same way but with approximately 100 years in between. The changes that have occurred are made visible, and the difference between the two pictures is sometimes striking. The labor that went into these photographs was extensive.
The subjects in Generator are fixed. The project is a documentation of 100 of Norway’s nearly 200 mountain power plants. The machine halls are photographed according to a set pattern: centrally placed camera; floor, walls and ceiling visible in the image; the generator cap or caps standing between the camera and the rear wall. The 100 halls are remarkably similar and yet entirely different; the machine halls of the mountain power plants constitute a type of space.
Documentary works such as this have been done before. In 1959 the German artists and couple Berndt and Hilla Becher began their work with photographing German commercial and industrial buildings. In 1963 the works were shown for the first time, and for the next forty years the pair continued to document different types of buildings, primarily in Germany, but also in America and other places in Europe. Characteristic of the couple’s series of publications was that the subjects were production facilities such as silos, grain towers and mineshafts. Through the Bechers’ systematic photographic documentations these in many ways anonymous buildings gradually attained status as icons.
Less familiar than the Bechers’ typological investigations are Walker Evans’1 photographs of American wooden churches which were first published in Architectural Forum in 1961. The magazine had a regular art feature, and in the December issue Evans’ photographic documentation of a little known and underappreciated type of building was presented along with Frank Lloyd Wright’s Greek orthodox church in Wawwatosa, Walter Gropius’ embassy in Greece and Le Corbusier’s Carpenter Center at Harvard University. This was new work from some of modern western architectural history’s most important figures.
Architects also seek inspiration from outside their own professional realm, and one can speculate about the influence the Becher’s and Evans’ images have had on the development of new architectonic expressions. Robert Venturi’s ground-breaking residences from the 1960s and ’70s have several similarities to the American wooden churches2, and Richard Rogers’ and Renzo Piano’s Centre Pompidou from the 1970s as well as Rogers’ later Lloyd’s building have clear references to industrial architecture.
There are similarities between the works of the Bechers and Evans and Per Berntsen’s photographs. The works are frontal, neutral and taken with a seriousness that gives the subjects a dignity one does not usually associate with them. But there is one point on which these works distinguish themselves from their precedents. While Evans and the Bechers photographed buildings, Berntsen has, in Generator, photographed rooms. There is a conspicuous difference between these two types of subject matter. The figurative quality of the different technical facilities that the German couple dedicated their lives to documenting is striking. Likewise the mask-like quality of the wooden churches Evans photographed. Not so with the machine halls depicted in the Generator project. While the buildings in the Bechers’ and Evans’ pictures appear as objects – complete forms with details that come forward in natural light – the subject matter in Berntsen’s works consist of mountain interiors.
The spaces we see in the pictures consist of just a few elements: one or several generators, a crane, a control room and the machine floor.3 The variation of forms within the individual elements is partly due to the fact that they are different; the generators are custom manufactured for each individual power plant, and the production of their components takes place all over the world. The oldest generator cap in the series, from 1948, is at Grønsdal; the newest generator, built in 2007, is at Blåfalli Vik. Both the turbine and the generator are lifted into place with an overhead crane. The weight of the components can be over 50 tons, and the construction of the crane is one of the most remarkable formal elements in these facilities. If the mountain is solid, the track for the crane can be fitted directly to the mountain wall as it was in Kaldestad, Suldal II and Uvdal I. If the mountain’s solidity is insufficient, the crane track must be supported by pillars, as at Holen or Myster. Roskrepp is an example of a plant where the crane track construction says something about the varying quality of the rock: the left track is fitted to the mountain while the right track partly rests on pillars.
There are other construction elements that are also informed by the soil and rock mechanics at the different power plant locations. The design of the machine room belies the mountain’s solidity and density. Generally speaking, the better the quality of the mountain, the more exposed the blasted surface can be. The majority of the machine rooms have covered ceilings in order to avoid groundwater leakage. How the problem of leakage is handled is clearly evident in the images of Nygard and Rygene; gutters and drainpipes carry moisture to a drainage system. Vemork is one example of a more elegant solution with respect to the ceiling. In Fjone and Stuvane on the other hand, there is only a layer of sprayed concrete ( gunite ) on the ceiling; one can presume that there is no danger of leakage here, the gunite nevertheless hinders crumbling. The simplest way to stabilize the mountain is by bolting; the triangular bolt plates in the foundation wall of Finndøla and the more common circular plates at Kvittingen are examples of this type of restraint. The 100 machine halls look like hermetically sealed spaces. Sequestered from the surroundings, it can seem as if these halls in the mountains are standing still. Quite the contrary. We see only the tops of the generators in the photographs, but the tremendous force of the flows of water crashing through the turbines at the base of the generators creates shaking. In Per Berntsen’s works the blurred chair in the gallery of the Leirdøla power station is the only suggestion of these forces. The constant vibrations amount to a strain on the constructions and the surface of the mountain, and the need for reinforcement against rock breakage is real.
Developing facilities which will operate deep within a mountain raises concerns that are far less concrete than those having to do with geomechanics and materials quality. They have to do with how one relates to the fact that there can be several hundred meters of mountain between the machine hall and the light of day.4 Now it should be mentioned that only a handful of the power stations included in the Generator project are staffed. The operation of these facilities is most often handled remotely. Nevertheless there is always a monitoring function in connection to the generator. In some power plants this is resolved with a work station in the machine hall itself as one sees in Byrte and Hove. More commonly, operation of the plant is from a separate control room with windows facing in toward the machine hall as in Sundsbarm and Røldal. Mountain power stations are production facilities with limited space for architectonic display. One of the means by which the machine halls are given spatial qualities is in the design of the lighting, and it is perhaps in this area that the different plants announce the degree to which they are objects of architectonic ambition. In a situation where natural light is an impossibility, the design of the artificial light becomes crucial to how the space will be experienced. Hekni and Høyanger V are sober industrial facilities. Here there is work light, but beyond that the solution does not contribute to any kind of architectonic quality. In plants such as Usta and Tonstad II however, the lighting is integrated in such a way as to give the walls a sculptural expression. In Brokke and Finndøla the lighting armatures are positioned such that the contrast between the mountain walls and the concrete constructions is emphasized. The lighting at Suldal II dramatizes the mountain wall; the lighting at Åna-Sira contributes to creating an illusion of the sky, while the lighting at Hylen is such that the picture of the plant suggests associations with 1960s sci-fi movies.
Noise reduction is also a factor in the formulation of these rooms. Both the turbine and the generator make noise. In addition, the generator emits carbon dust which means that sound-proofing in the form of soft absorbent materials cannot be utilized insofar as maintenance of the machine hall will be prohibitive. Where required sound-proofing is therefore usually integrated into the walls as a part of the construction in the form of masonry where the pattern of the brickwork creates absorbent pockets of space. This form of sound-proofing also has an additional effect in that the patterns that form on the surface of the wall provide an ornamental effect, as at Lang-Sima and Evanger. At Kvilldal the wall is resolved as a kind of functional decorative element that integrates the lighting and in all likelihood improves the sound conditions in the machine hall. Only a few of the halls have true decorative elements. In Svelgfoss the foundation wall is covered by an image of a landscape; otherwise it is generally the coloration of the machine floor or different spatial elements that provide a decorative effect. That the vault in Sundsbarm is sky-blue, for example, or that the floor in Saurdal is canary-yellow cannot be discerned in Berntsen’s works.
These one hundred halls are monumental. The certainty of which forces these rooms stand in relation to arouses a respect similar to that which one experiences when confronted with abstract dimensions built for entirely different purposes. The power industry constitutes an essential part of the Norwegian economy, and its buildings have, since the industry’s very inception, represented some of the most outstanding in Norwegian architecture and engineering. Power stations such as Tysso and Alta are well known. These are facilities that have created local communities and polarized public opinion. Yet the majority of the names in Generator are unfamiliar. Even though most Norwegian hydropower production comes from mountain facilities we know little about their formulation. It’s in the nature of things that these power stations don’t reveal much of themselves. By venturing deep, into the mountain, Per Berntsen has brought unknown and meaningful space into the light.