Electricity pylons New designs unveiled across Britain.

A Danish company has won a contest to find a new design for electricity pylons, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said today.

The T-shaped design beat five other finalists in the contest run by the DECC, National Grid, and Royal Institute of British Architects to find a new shape for pylons, which have been unchanged since the 1920s.

The Pylon Design competition launched on May 23 and out of 250 entries, six finalists were unveiled on September 14 at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

The innovative T-Pylon design by Danish company Bystrup was unanimously agreed as the winner by the judging panel, it was announced today.

The company will receive £5,000 prize money, while the five other finalists will receive £1,000.

National Grid will now work with Bystrup to develop the T-Pylon design further, and has also said it wants to do more work with Ian Ritchie Associates on its Silhouette design, and New Town Studio’s Totem design.

History: First Pylon

Britain's first pylon, erected in July 1928 near Edinburgh, was designed by architectural luminary Sir Reginald Blomfield, inspired by the Greek root of the word ‘pylon’ (meaning gateway of an Egyptian temple).

The campaign against them – they were unloved even then – was run by Rudyard Kipling, John Maynard Keynes and Hilaire Belloc.

Five years later, the biggest peacetime construction project seen in Britain, the connection of 122 power stations by 4,000 miles of cable, was completed.

It marked the birth of the National Grid and was a major stoking of the nation’s industrial engine and a vital asset during the Second World War.

Below are the six shortlisted designs. 

Unique: New Town Studio, based in Essex, said it used the 'lattice' frame of the traditional pylon as its inspiration, pictured, when creating this shortlisted design with London engineers Structure Workshop

Y-shaped: This 'distinctive, contemporary and elegant' pylon is sheathed in rubber for insulation and was also shortlisted

The shortlisted submission from london's Amanda Levete Architects, the 'Plexus' changes shape depending on  the surrounding landscape.

                                                                                                                  

        A Danish company's T pylon

Blue-sky thinking: Landscape architects Gustafson Porter, left, designed their 'flower tower' which is inspired by the shape of plants, while Ian Ritchie Architects submitted their Silhouette, right, which was also shortlisted