Battersea power station: inside the landmark

Photographer Michael Collins describes Battersea power station as a 'twentieth-century ruined castle'. This view, complete with the building's iconic chimney stacks, shows the entrances to the turbine halls and the boiler house Photograph: Michael Collins

The scale of the boiler house is shown by the fact that the yellow objects visible in the foreground are not buckets but skip chutes Photograph: Michael Collins

Battersea power station was built to last, with its interior including Art Deco walls and ceilings. Here Collins has photographed turbine hall A – the equivalent of the Tate Modern’s turbine hall Photograph: Michael Collins

Riverside cranes pictured in 2006. The Grade II-listed machines were used to transfer coal from the power station’s fleet of colliers Photograph: Michael Collins

Control room A, also known as the auxiliary control room Photograph: Michael Collins

Panelled in Italian marble, this is control room B, which – thanks to its hardwood parquet floor – required workers to wear felt overshoes. Few people have seen the power station close up, as it is not open to the public and has a safety exclusion zone Photograph: Michael Collins

The panel in Battersea's control room B. The photograph, which measures 4 feet by 5 feet, is approximately half the size of the actual control panel Photograph: Michael Collins

The north side of the derelict boiler house, with its roof removed and machinery scrapped Photograph: Michael Collins

Taken from the base of the south-west chimney, this shot shows the Pimlico housing estate on the other side of the Thames Photograph: Michael Collins