The old Osney Power Station is now Saïd Business School's Global Leadership Centre, for executive education, with its 1892 brick front and turbine hall kept.
The old Osney Power Station on the Thames is now a business school building, and it is about to open. Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford has turned the site into its Global Leadership Centre, a centre for leadership development and executive education, built to shape the next generation of global leaders. Its four classrooms and twelve seminar rooms sit alongside bedrooms for participants who stay on site.
The School has not yet given the opening date.
The School describes the centre as one that “transforms the historic Osney Power Station site into a new destination for leadership development, executive education and global convening and retreat in the heart of Oxford”.
The building that lit Oxford
The School’s own history of the site says the power station opened on 18 June 1892, on an island in the Thames about a mile west of the city centre, and that it “powered the first electric lightbulb in Oxford”.
It closed in 1968. After that, the School says, it was used by the University’s Engineering Department and most recently for museum storage.
“It is a building of considerable character and is much loved by residents,” the School’s page says. “Its brick faced elevations are retained to reflect the architectural history of the building.”
What is inside
The School lists the facilities as:
- 4 classrooms, which it calls “adaptable spaces designed for impactful, flexible learning”
- 12 seminar rooms, smaller rooms for group work
- 120 en-suite bedrooms across four floors
- a clubroom and riverside terrace, for coffee by day and “a hub for conversation and community” later on
- a dining room with river views, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner
- a gym with riverside views, plus tai chi, yoga and meditation sessions
- a courtyard framed by the original turbine hall
At the middle of the building is a space the School calls the Agora. It keeps the power station’s “arched windows, red painted steels and exposed brickwork”, according to the School’s description.
The School says the renovation “followed Passivhaus standards” and that the building has air source heat pumps and solar panels.
Close to the station
The School says the centre is “just 5 minutes walk from Oxford rail station and 8 minutes from our existing Park End Street Campus”. It calls it “an extension of the School’s city centre campus”.
Getting to Osney has been harder than usual lately. Botley Road, the route past the station, reopened in September after three years of works, and the Swan Street footbridge on Osney Island has been shut since 24 September.
What the School wants from it
The centre is for leaders who come on Saïd’s executive programmes and stay on site. “Immersive experiences allow leaders to remove themselves from their work pressures, giving them time for learning, networking and reflection,” the School says.
“Our approach isn’t to offer simple answers, but to help learners to ask critical questions of themselves and their organisations.”
The School filmed a progress report on the building in July 2024:
What it means for you
The centre is built for paying executive education clients, and the School has not yet said whether any of it will be open to the public. We have asked the School when it officially opens, what the conversion cost, who designed it, whether residents will be able to use any of it, such as the riverside, a café or rooms to book, and how many people it will employ. Its media office says answers and a press kit are coming next week.
For now, the brick front that has stood on the river since 1892 is still there, and the School says it was kept on purpose.
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