Last Days for Electric Plant?

John T. Windrim's stately, early 20th Century cathedral of electricity, the Delaware Power Plant, has taken some hard blows. Graffiti mars the elegance of its stripped-down classicism, and a tangle of transformers and substations block views of its elegant Delaware Avenue facade. But until this week, the 1917 power station - one of four Windrim designed along the Delaware - had stood fairly intact. Then, on Thursday, Exelon (which bought PECO and its property a few years ago) began slicing off a small annex, leaving the power plant's north wall open to the elements.




Company spokesman Fred Maher insists the demolition is a limited operation - and not a prelude to total destruction of the generating station. But the unexpected deconstruction work has alarmed the building's champions, especially Hilary Regan. (Photo, right, by the Inquirer's Jon Wilson). They're increasingly worried about the future of the Delaware Power Plant and its sister station upriver, the Richmond Power Station, which was denied historic certification by the Street Administration.

Like many people who have devoted themselves over the last several years to creating a new vision for the Delaware waterfront, they see the two industrial relics as, well, generators of change. The grandeur of their architecture, coupled with their enormous high-ceiling turbine rooms, make them perfect candidates for a new museum of modern art. Obviously, they're keen to replicate the success of London's Tate Modern, which was carved out of old Bankside power plant on the Thames River with the help of Herzon & DeMeuron. But why not?

The Delaware Power Plant, which sits immediately north of Penn Treaty Park, is the more obvious candidate for re-purposing as an art museum, since it's closer to Center City. It's not hard to imagine it cleaned up, freed of its concertina of transformer wires, and installed with oversize sculpture. Sure beats a casino as a riverfront attraction.