In our current post truth world, “Facts Not Opinions” feels like it would be a fine strapline for the many fact-checking agencies we increasingly rely upon. But it is not. Instead, the words sit carved on the 150-year-old pedimented entrance to Kirkaldy’s Testing Works in Southwark, a stone’s throw from Tate Modern.
There could not be a greater contrast in the two buildings, though each is a reminder of the area’s mighty industrial past. Tate Modern was formerly Bankside Power Station — designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, who also finessed the Battersea Power Station — which opened in 1962, closed in 1981 and still looks like a cathedral of power. Kirkaldy’s Testing Works looks like a Renaissance building that wouldn’t be out of place on a Venetian canalside, but it is a temple dedicated to destruction. It opened in 1873 and is the earliest purpose-built independent commercial materials testing laboratory in the world. It still houses the main machine that it was designed for — a 14.5m leviathan that stretches the length of the building.
