Steamy Steampunk Buildings

[Lord Pentecost]

A few UK ones,

Oxford Natural History Museum: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1433/536511345_c1f0a0e289.jpg

Papplewick Pumping Station: http://www.spectacle.co.uk/spectacleblog/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/BPSpapplewick-pumping-station-2.jpg

Tyntesfield (not so much steam punk but a slice of Gothic awesomeness: http://www.dayvisits.co.uk/_img/pics/l_tyntesfield.jpg

Ditto, the Royal Masonic School: http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a346/msaunder1972/Royal%20Masonic%20School/MBS054.jpg

Battersea Power station: http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh36/cogitooo/battersea/7.jpg

[yereverluvinunclebert]

All of those most steamy and I've visited them all. Lovely choices.

[Antonus Fudge]

Hey Guys just wondering, I recently had a look back at all the buildings I thought were Steamy, and was wondering, What buildings do you think are Steampunk and Why?  I was hoping to get a list of them compiled together so I could go do some "research" and find something to do.  Please help.
The ones I think of when I hear Steamy is the Palais des Machines and the Crystal Palace, What do you think?

I find Paris a very Steampunk city - the Musée des Arts et Métiers is so steampunk that even the local metro station is steamed out. The Eiffel Tower - a SP icon surely? In the UK, I submit Battersea Power Station. There's loads!

[J. Wilhelm]

Hey Guys just wondering, I recently had a look back at all the buildings I thought were Steamy, and was wondering, What buildings do you think are Steampunk and Why?  I was hoping to get a list of them compiled together so I could go do some "research" and find something to do.  Please help.
The ones I think of when I hear Steamy is the Palais des Machines and the Crystal Palace, What do you think?

I find Paris a very Steampunk city - the Musée des Arts et Métiers is so steampunk that even the local metro station is steamed out. The Eiffel Tower - a SP icon surely? In the UK, I submit Battersea Power Station. There's loads!

Sadly a number of pictures posted by the OP have now vanished, due to the prolonged duration of this thread....

Yes, the Eiffel Tower is about as steamy as you can get, and anything in the late 1800's period in Paris will lend itself very well, I'd say.  I gave previous examples of the Galleria Umberto I in Naples and a couple of really steamy locations in Mexico City.  Really the world is full of steamy buildings if you care to look for them.

[yereverluvinunclebert]

Hello J.Wilhelm, nice to join in a conversation with you. A nice place to copy/post images is the steampunk empire:

http://www.thesteampunkempire.com/photo/photo/listForContributor?screenName=3cmvo7pqvfgib

They allow you load unlimited amount of images into your own account and they host them for free so we can post images there and they should stay.

You may know about it already but it is worth pointing out to those that don't.

[J. Wilhelm]

Hello J.Wilhelm, nice to join in a conversation with you. A nice place to copy/post images is the steampunk empire:

http://www.thesteampunkempire.com/photo/photo/listForContributor?screenName=3cmvo7pqvfgib

They allow you load unlimited amount of images into your own account and they host them for free so we can post images there and they should stay.

You may know about it already but it is worth pointing out to those that don't.

Hello old friend!  Indeed I do.  Well I didn't lose my photos (I often host them in my business Yahoo acct.)  But it looks like Mr. Croft's splendid Australian architectural photos were decimated by Father Time. I'll pass the info along!

J. W.

[MarcusJuliusCroft]

Hahaha, Sorry Guys,  I have finally managed to get internet back.  Yeah, I noticed that the photos disappeared but haven't been able to do anything about it.  My mistake and I apologise for it.

[Dave Leppo]

Queens Royal College, a historic secondary school in Port of Spain, Trinidad.
just saw this school on npr http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/05/29/316989869/the-future-of-online-ed-isnt-heading-where-you-expect

[Keith_Beef]

but Cragside is truly steampunk, being beautiful and having all the electricity in the building generated by water-driven turbines back in 1870...



read on McDuff: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cragside

I've not visited Cragside in years, and the title of this thread made me immediately think of what is my dream house. If I had the money for it, I'd build something very similar, down to the hydroelectricity and the hydraulic lift.
It really should be on everybody's list of places to see in the UK.

[GCCC]

"Blue Skylight, Pele's Castle, Romania photo via lonehunter"

(In case the image disappears again, here's the url:  http://fi.cloud-nodes.com/list.images.i.352177253974901.ws)

[GCCC]

Somewhere in San Francisco.
http://thevoyaging.tumblr.com/post/53756817376/dark-colors-san-francisco-california-photo-via

[chironex]

I agree with painting the old house in pretty colours... but those colours just aren't right. Then again, in the next suburb over there is an old-style house in a typical north Australian style painted dead black with mirrors stuck all over it...


Just had to go back, if this thread is to be kept current, and fix some of my links.

Also:


The Sweatshop offered art and refreshments, and is no longer there. I shall go and update this shot this weekend.

It actually was a bank...

Originally Tattersalls' Hotel, now Molly Malones' not-so-authentic Irish pub that just happens to look like an Australian pub.

An even less authentic Irish pub - which was a bank, then hosted a signals unit during the Second World War, then taken by the meat workers' union, now Flynns'.

Bowral Station, NSW.

Flinders Street Workshops, Townsville.

The old Great Northern Railway station, Townsville.

My construction of the Ghost House from Ravensblight Manor.


I got my Diploma of IT here.
I shall add some more soon.

[Prof Thadeus Q. Wychlock]

Ive maybe posted this before but this is in central Lille.
On the lighter side of SP.

[chironex]

Customs House. Note the observation turret to spot incoming ships.

http://thoughtengine.deviantart.com/art/Queens-Hotel-Townsville-550592915?ga_submit_new=10%253A1438492381
Queens Hotel, Townsville.

Was a bank...

Seeing a pattern here?


A girls' school in Brisbane, the oldest structures of which are across the other side of the cutting.

[Serrac]

Has anyone mentioned Aviva's head office on Surrey Street, Norwich ?

Designed by George Skipper, it is claimed that much of the marble used was originally intended to be used in the Houses of Parliament.


More images to be found via: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=marble+hall+norwich+aviva&client=iceweasel-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:unofficial&biw=1285&bih=730&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CDQQsARqFQoTCOq_0Kqdi8cCFUlXFAodR5YM5Q#imgrc=1KclzZTr1Wix6M%3A

[yereverluvinunclebert]

I'd agree on the last. Some of the other recent Antipodean buildings seem to me to be examples of stock Victorian types, not really that special. I suppose that is because we have such a huge stock of Victorian buildings that they seem normal over here. My local town centre consists of nothing but buildings prior to that time (as do many British market towns):


I think a building needs to be 'special' and not just Victorian to be steampunkish.

[Serrac]

My local town centre consists of nothing but buildings prior to that time:

I know that place - Pass through there every time I use the X44.... (small world).

[yereverluvinunclebert]

I have just moved within the last three weeks and I need a recommendation for a good pub... There are the two in the town centre but I need better recommendations nearby. Feel free to recommend and I'll buy you a pint.

My house is Georgian so it pre-dates steampunkiness but give me time - it will have elements.

[Serrac]

I need a recommendation for a good pub...

The Black Boys is the only pub in Aylsham I'm familiar with, and it has been a very long time since I've been inside. Don't drink as much as I used to, so pubs are not places I go to regularly.

[RJBowman]

Not every odd of novel building could be classified as steampunk, but here is a whimsical building of recent vintage that I could imagine existing amongst other eccentric structures in a steampunk setting:


The famous Chicken Church of Indonesia.
http://io9.com/this-bizarre-abandoned-church-is-shaped-like-a-giant-ch-1722062035

[chironex]

The Queensland Building, Flinders Street, Townsville.
http://thoughtengine.deviantart.com/art/Queensland-Building-551319269?ga_submit_new=10%253A1438746917
The aforementioned update.
http://thoughtengine.deviantart.com/art/Commercial-Buildings-551319892?ga_submit_new=10%253A1438747152
The back street side of Customs House.
http://thoughtengine.deviantart.com/art/Back-of-customs-house-551320769?ga_submit_new=10%253A1438747367

[RJBowman]

Michigan Fieldstone Building: Leonidas School, Leonidas, Michigan.
http://myqualityday.blogspot.com/2014/09/michigan-fieldstone-leonidas-school.html

These stones were not cut; they were pulled out of a farmer's field; deposited there by glaciers during the last ice age. The rocks are of varied types originating from great distances away.

Fieldstone buildings are not as common in Michigan as might be expected based on the cheap availability of the materials. Building from these stones requires a greater degree of skill than the local construction industry seems to be willing to pay for. And among the few such buildings I've seen, the level of design seen in the Leonidas school is uncommon. I do recall seeing one fieldstone storefront building, probably about a century old, that had decent architectural detail including archway windows.

[Patron Zero]

Not as elegant as some of the other structures seen in the thread but does possess the pedigree to qualify as steampunk, at least by it's age.

The Aviary Apartments as it was commonly known but officially titled the Avery building, is a three story brick monstrosity in downtown Indianapolis, built after the American Civil War it's an example of urban architecture of the times.

Myself, I lived there as a child from 1960 to 1972, the building was steam-heated and had an original coal-fired boiler, updated to natural gas in the 1940s, or so I am told.

More recently the building was gutted and now hosts yuppie apartments which completely obliterated the original floor-plan.

[GCCC]

Did this building ever go by a different name, before it was Avery Apartments?

[Serrac]

Did this building ever go by a different name, before it was Avery Apartments?

This looks about right: http://bypearl.com/the-aviary/


In looking for the above building, came across this one...

Full story here: http://historicindianapolis.com/whats-in-a-name-vajen-exchange-block/