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Misread the title as "Working" control room, and was ready to be amazed that something like that from the first half of the last century was still in use... and not even a PC or screen to be found. But, it was decomissioned in 1997.
Really interesting how depression-era infrastructure like that was still built with so much attention to aesthetic design.
Today it would just be screens on a wall, industrial carpet floor, drop-tile ceiling with LED lights, a few Steelcase cubicles for the operators and little else.
It's great that so much about those old control rooms is posted here lately!
One thing I notice is how much efforts had been spent to illustrate both the current status of the system, but also it's overall structure and how the two relate - i.e. the actual components of the facility.
Almost all of the dashboards here have some kind of graph, showing the wiring or plumbing between components, or in case of railway control, the railway lines. The graph acts like a map on which status indicators or switches can be placed.
Compare that to modern software "dashboards" which are full of complicated charts showing various metrics, but almost never show the structure of the system.
There's something very beautiful about the attention to detail and forethought that has gone into rooms like this.
The wonderful combination of beauty through a clear focus on functionality, supported by just enough of a sense of majesty to lift the whole space beyond pure functionality makes it a little more special.
This is probably a place that was always considered at least somewhat beautiful given its strong design, but more generally speaking I find it really interesting seeing how functional ~1930-1970s era industrial units like this have kinda become fascinating and (in their own way) beautiful places in the eyes of so many (me included).
I often wonder how people in the future will look back at our current humdrum infrastructure and what they might think of it. No doubt there'll be just as much nostalgia and fascination in some quarters, but i have to admit it's a little hard at times for me to see what elements of modern infrastructure will become the focal point of curious minds in, say, the 2050s.
That said, I did visit a museum last year that had some pylon insulators and some other old 1990s electric-grid equipment and I found it kinda interesting and beautiful in its own way so what do I know?!
There is so much cool tech and tech spaces that have been lost in terms of the visual history and story. I wish I could go back in time and capture more of the spaces and artifacts that I was involved in. Perhaps this isn't an issue for anything created in the last 15 years since smartphones have existed.
It could just be that effect where when you see something once (again) you start seeing it everywhere, but I've seen a recent uptick in administration for old control rooms on the internet recently and I appreciate it.
In the age of digital clouds we've lost the tactile experience of managing the infrastructure we rely on to (IMHO) our own detriment.
I would like to imagine that if pushing a change to production meant a development had to walk down a wall of cabinets with blinking lights toggling chunky switches as they went the simple physicality of the act would be enough to make them pause and wonder if everything really was in order.
I was wondering whether it was still in use, and if so for how much longer. Apparently it is no longer operational but, hearteningly, has been historically preserved and is now let out as a period filming location.
Mimic panels like that were the UI before screens. The single-line diagram is the wall, the breakers are the buttons. Worked near one in the 90s that got replaced by SCADA, and operators hated losing the whole-grid-at-a-glance view. Monitors never gave that back.
Is it really the inverse though? Liminal spaces feel empty because nobody's meant to be there. This room was built around one person sitting in it for eight hours. Maybe the emptiness is just the photographer waiting for everyone to leave, and the room reads as occupied once you imagine the operator.
in that its lovely and highly functional? sure. what disturbs me is that the lit map is wrapped around this large empty room. but the operator would get the same angular view if the whole thing was just somewhat smaller and wrapped more closely around the desk. the use of space here seems extravagant and kind of unsettling
I think the empty room is mostly about the people, not the operator. The mimic board wasn't just for the desk, it was so a whole shift of engineers and visitors could stand back and read the grid at a glance. Also, those panels needed rear access for wiring and maintenance, so you couldn't hug the desk.
I disagree that naming the font settles it. Futura is a fine display face, but it's a poor choice for body text, especially light weights on a dark background. tempodox is right that it's unreadable. Knowing it's Futura just tells you the designer picked looks over legibility.
Everything on that wall is a mimic diagram, which means somebody had to keep it in sync with the real plant by hand. I'd bet money the board and the field drifted apart within a year, and nobody trusted it at 3am anyway.
Really interesting how depression-era infrastructure like that was still built with so much attention to aesthetic design.
Today it would just be screens on a wall, industrial carpet floor, drop-tile ceiling with LED lights, a few Steelcase cubicles for the operators and little else.