Tesla Transformed
The Niagara Parks Power Station adaptive reuse by +VG Architects turns the granddaddy of today’s electric-power industry into an iconic museum and entertainment destination. What do JP Morgan and John Jacob Astor IV, who would die in the sinking of RMS Titanic in 1912, have in common? They were principal financiers of Niagara Parks Power Station (NPPS), the building that launched the modern electrical industrial era. Constructed between 1901 and 1905, the Richardsonian Romanesque-style powerhouse occupies a unique position in the history of the electrical and industrial revolutions. It is here that George Westinghouse and his business partner Nikola Tesla used their generators and AC current to create electricity and distribute it over a long-distance energy grid at commercial scale. NPPS became the global model for the fledgling hydroelectric power industry. NPPS is the world’s only existing power plant of its age that is still complete in its original form …
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