Power Station

Technological state of the art and the energy industry were the design premises for the new electric power station in Lelystad. It is not merely a building with machines to produce electricity freestanding in it. The sheath needed to keep the weather out and the noise in, has itself become part of the machinery. In fact each production unit has a dual sheath. First there is the full-length fibre reinforced synthetic membrane draped over a number of forty-metre-tall steel lattice trusses. A second sheath covering the sound-producing and rotating components is there for purposes of sound absorption and thermal insulation. This inner sheath combines with the transparent glazed heads as the turbine hall. Its unique location, on an island joined to the coast by a dyke accessible to the public, adds to the reveal-all ethos of the new power station. The 'engineer's logic' of the light and airy shell underscores the image of a clean and efficient means of energy production. These machines look as natural a part of their surroundings as the power pylons, windmills and polders. Its scale and distinctive form lend the power station landmark status, also at night when the two translucent 'caterpillars' glow with a blue light issuing from within.