What’s Happening: After four decades of development starts and stops, the London landmark has been painstakingly restored into an entertainment destination that pays homage to its industrial origins.

The Download: Few buildings in London are more storied than the Battersea Power Station. Commissioned in 1933, the hulking structure burnt coal and generated 20 percent of the city’s electricity, keeping the lights on in Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament. It’s rumored that World War II pilots even used the thick plumes of smoke billowing from its four giant chimneys to guide them home in misty conditions. One of the world’s largest brick buildings, the power station was decommissioned in 1975 and has sat empty ever since. Its lavish Art Deco interior fittings, prominent site along the Thames, and appearances in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1936 film Sabotage and on Pink Floyd’s 1977 album cover for Animals earned the structure Grade II status in 1980, saving it from demolition.

Since then, multiple developers have hatched ill-fated plans to reimagine Battersea as London’s next great entertainment amenity. First up was John Broome, who acquired the site in 1987 with plans to transform it into a theme park fitted out with rollercoasters, an aquarium, an ice rink, 4D cinemas, and a botanical garden. Costly renovations and a looming recession doomed it to failure. City planner Sir Terry Farrell proposed the structure be converted into the centerpiece of a sprawling park. Chelsea FC envisioned it as a 60,000-seat stadium designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox.

Battersea’s owners ultimately sold the site for $10 billion to a Malaysian consortium, who had other plans: thousands of condo units surrounding the red-brick behemoth, which would now house a mall and office space.

The first phase of Battersea’s revamp, which took local firm Wilkinson Eyre ten years, opened this past week. The long-decaying interior needed some serious TLC—dismantling and rebuilding the corroded chimneys and updating its distinctive brickwork. Inside the cavernous turbine halls are hundreds of restaurants and shops such as Ralph Lauren, Uniqlo, and Levi’s, which line corridors clad in ceramic tiles and fitted out with three times the quantity of steel used for the Eiffel Tower. Two restored control rooms, which feature breathtaking floor-to-ceiling displays of machinery, were meticulously preserved in their Brutalist and Art Deco styles, and now serve as a 1,400-person event space and an all-day bar that promises to transport patrons back to the ‘50s.

Helping bankroll the venture are swaths of luxury condos, designed by Frank Gehry and Norman Foster, that snake around the building and create a new neighborhood called Nine Elms. These have been Battersea’s biggest point of contention: only nine percent of the condos, which cost $970,000 for a studio, were earmarked as affordable. (The Malaysian group’s original proposal, critics note, called for 50 percent.)

Developers were also supposed to fund The Tube’s costly Northern Line extension, which terminates at Battersea, but ultimately relied on public funds. Others simply think a mall doesn’t do the building justice. “Forty years to create a shopping mall,” local architect Keith Garner tells the BBC. “The thrill of seeing the building has gone forever. It’s no longer a landmark if you surround it with other massive buildings. What they’ve done is spiritually desolate.”

Shopping is only part of the equation. Apple is relocating more than 1,500 employees from its offices scattered around London to its newly christened UK headquarters inside the boiler room, which longtime collaborator Foster + Partners revamped into six floors of workspaces. Among the site’s amenities are a boxing gym, cinema, private members club, and an observation deck accessed by a cylindrical glass elevator that scales one of the chimneys so passengers can marvel at 360-degree views of London.

In Their Own Words: “That’s the fascinating challenge for us as architects,” Sebastian Ricard, the project manager for Wilkinson Eyre, told the BBC, noting how Battersea is three times the size of Tate Modern. “Dealing with that amazing structure, wanting to retain the sense of scale, the sense of history, and industrial history, and at the same time to make sure we were creating some pockets of space within the building which make you feel comfortable if you’re going to live there, work there, or shop there.”

Surface Says: We’re getting a little exhausted with the heritage-structure-turned-retail template. Maybe London should have taken a cue from Lisbon, where the historically significant Tejo Power Station was transformed into a permanent exhibition as part of the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT). The well-preserved original machinery and immaculate state of conservation tell a story much more impactful than another luxury fashion boutique. Though we have to admit we can’t wait to get a drink at that bar.

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Surface has long prided itself on celebrating the creativity of the hospitality industry, which is why we’re so excited about our ongoing partnership with Dorsia—a members-only platform with access to reservations at the most in-demand restaurants in New York.

Starting today, you can score reservations at some of Miami’s hottest dining destinations such as KYU, Carbone, Hiyakawa, LPM, Boia De, Cote, and Gekkō. Tables are available to book from October 26th onward.

Download the app, apply for membership, and stay tuned for upcoming launches in L.A. and other top food cities. And watch this space for more installments of Designing Delicious, a new series produced in collaboration with Dorsia that goes behind the scenes of the culinary world’s preeminent restaurants.

Noma is taking its show on the road again after a pandemic hiatus, coming full circle with a 10-week pop-up in Japan. The groundbreaking Copenhagen restaurant led by chef Rene Redzepi is widely credited with pioneering the New Nordic movement, holds three Michelin stars, and has topped the World’s Best Restaurant list numerous times. It first kicked off its residency program in Tokyo (2015) before moving on to Sydney (2016) and Tulum, Mexico (2017). Planting its flag inside the Kengo Kuma–designed Ace Hotel Kyoto, Noma’s fourth residency will run for 10 weeks starting March 15 with lunch and dinner seatings running through May 20.

The menu will be an homage to the traditional multi-course Japanese meal called kaiseki. Redzepi recently unveiled that his team already has over 500 pounds of dried yuzu peels, and teased other ingredients such as salted sansho berries and a vegan dashi brewed from caramelized pumpkin and corn. “I believe Kyoto to be the birthplace of the western tasting menu, and it remains one of the most important cities through which to understand the fine dining scene today,” he says. “Much of my own journey and inspiration can be boiled down to a handful of important moments, and going to Japan and Kyoto for the first time is one of them.”

Tickets go on sale on Monday, November 7 at 7 a.m. eastern time and can be purchased by signing up for the Noma newsletter here. Ace Hotel is also offering a Noma package that includes accommodations.

Flipping the script on how Black families are often portrayed, the Oklahoma painter lovingly illustrates the strength and gentleness that flows through his community to correct the historical record. “I want my subjects to get the chance to live forever through my work.”

Here, we ask an artist to frame the essential details behind one of their latest works.

Bio: Robert Peterson, 41, Lawton, OK.

Title of work: Sunday Kind of Love (2022).

Where to see it: Claire Oliver Gallery, New York, until Nov. 5.

Three words to describe it: Personal. Love. Beautiful.

What was on your mind at the time: This exhibition is a personal one. I wanted to find a way to capture the balance I have in my life as a husband and a father, and as a Black man. I was also thinking about the future—how centuries from now I want people to view Black people and Black families engaging with normalcy and harmony.

More specifically, I have a memory in mind. Before my wife and I had kids, we would use the weekends to reconnect and clear our minds of the previous work week. We would often lay on the bed or couch in silence, listening to each other breathe and the sounds of each other’s heartbeats. It was peace. I wanted to capture that feeling so it can live forever and contrast the often-negative narrative the media associates with Black culture.

It’s a rite of passage for designers to strike out on their own after honing their skills in-house at an established brand. For Les Monts founder and creative director Casey Klugman, launching his own eyewear label was top of mind from day one as a design school undergrad. With his love of eyewear ignited by a special pair of vintage specs, Klugman set out to learn everything he thought he needed to know, delving into the ins and outs of the business as the product manager of Ted Baker’s eyewear collection.

With the launch of his own line of artisan-made eyewear earlier this year, Klugman spoke with Surface about the unglamorous gig that taught him everything he needed to know about being his own boss, the importance of having his hands and eyes on every single product, and why philanthropy is inextricable from the Les Monts brand.

For more than 20 years, Juan Miró has assigned his students at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Architecture a quick exercise: hand-draw a detailed section of the window in their bedroom. The task seemed simple enough until Miró learned some of his students’ bedrooms lacked windows altogether. “I couldn’t believe it when they first told me,” he wrote in ArchDaily earlier this year, “thinking perhaps shady landlords are illegally renting them large closets as bedrooms.” He was horrified to learn his students actually stay in windowless dorms built on West Campus—a transformation touted by the university as a successful example of zoning for higher density in residential areas.

Successful for lab rats, maybe. When Miró asked fellow architects if they knew about UTA’s window situation, most responded with incredulity. Bedroom windows traditionally provide emergency escape and a rescue opening, but the International Building Code makes exceptions when buildings are fully sprinklered, only requiring they comply with emergency egress requirements expected in a traditional office building. Miró cites a report from the Prison Association of New York: “There is no excuse in these days for building a prison without windows in the cells into which light is admitted only through the doors,” it reads. Year of publication? 1903.

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Norman Kelley is an architecture and design collaborative founded by Carrie Norman and Thomas Kelley in 2012 with offices in Chicago and New Orleans. The firm’s work ranges from interior alterations and exhibition design to bespoke furniture.

Surface Says: Tasked with telling the backstory behind Chicago’s rich comics history through exhibition design, Norman Kelley deftly employed color, scale, and proportion, finding a kinship with cartoonists in the process.

Scientists think a “mummified dinosaur” was formed in an unexpected way.

Caitlin Covington leans into her annual “Christian Girl Autumn” photoshoot.

Forage your way through Adam Whyte’s fungi-themed photography book.

Adidas turns Marge Simpson’s larger-than-life blue hair into a new sneaker.