I've always been fascinated by industrial ruins, but it was a conversation with my late aunt Pat that really sparked my interest in the abandoned Butterley foundry.
The name ‘Butterley’ was inspired by ‘Butterley Company’, a very real engineering giant that was at the forefront of the industrial revolution.
Founded in 1790 in a Derbyshire village, both my grandfather and aunt worked for the renowned metal foundry and ironworks. In its day, Butterley Company was a household name, churning out the metalwork and castings for St Pancras Station and Vauxhall Bridge, as well as forging then futuristic technologies like steam trains and ships.
Butterley won an engineering award at the Great Exhibition in 1851, the visionary exhibition at Crystal Palace that was delivered by the RSA. Another serendipitous Butterley connection, as I ended up working as curator on the RSA's public events programme, and sometimes wondered about Prince Albert presenting his technophilic vision in the same rooms hundreds of years prior.
By the early to mid 20th century, Butterley had withstood significant epochal shifts and continued to flourish. During World War II, Butterley made frigate parts, munitions and even pontoons for D-Day's Mulberry Harbour, and by the 1950s she employed over 10,000 people.
The engine driving centuries of technological progress, Butterley's steel literally propped up the Industrial Revolution
Despite being at the forefront of technological and societal change for over two hundred years, Butterley finally stopped trading in 2009. It's now another graffitied industrial ruin – a giant laid to rest like so many manufacturing titans.
It was my elderly aunt reminiscing about the heat and power of Butterley’s blast furnaces that got me thinking.
What if Butterley could be reimagined for a new era? An era not of coal and steel, but of ideas and information? Butterley could continue to evolve, but as a virtual foundry providing the materials to power a new digital economy.
And so, Butterley: The Ideas Foundry was born. It’s a kind of Butterley 3.0 – a Butterley Redux. Not a physical factory, but a digital space where ideas are cast and replicated as live and online content. Just as the original Butterley Company created the girders and integral supports for the innovations of the industrial economy, so the new Butterley will produce creative, fresh content to power the fourth industrial revolution
Butterley’s blast furnaces are still burning - figuratively this time - creating ideas, information and inspiration for the 21st century.