Millennium Dome
The Millennium Dome was the original name of the large dome-shaped building on the Greenwich Peninsula in South East London, England, which housed a major exhibition celebrating the beginning of the third millennium. When opened in 1999, it was the fifth largest building in the world by usable volume. The exhibition was open to the public from 1 January to 31 December 2000. The project and exhibition were highly contentious and attracted barely half of the 12 million customers its sponsors forecasted, and so were deemed a failure by the press. All the original exhibition elements were sold or dismantled.
In a 2005 report, the cost of the Dome and surrounding land and managing the Dome until the deal was closed was £28.7 million. The value of the 48 acres occupied by the Dome was estimated at £48 million, which could have been realised by demolishing the structure, but it was considered preferable to preserve the Dome. The structure itself still exists and serves as the exterior to The O2 entertainment complex, which includes the O2 Arena.
The Prime Meridian passes the western edge of the Dome and the nearest London Underground station is North Greenwich on the Jubilee line.
Architecture
The dome is one of the largest of its type in the world. Externally, it appears as a large white marquee with twelve yellow support towers, one for each month of the year, or each hour of the clock face, representing the role played by Greenwich Mean Time. In plan view it is circular, in diameter. It has become one of the United Kingdom's most recognisable landmarks, and can be easily identified on satellite images of London.The architect was Richard Rogers and the contractor was a joint venture company, McAlpine/Laing Joint Venture formed between Sir Robert McAlpine and Laing Management. The building structure was engineered by Buro Happold, and the entire roof structure weighs less than the air contained within the building. Although referred to as a dome it is "not a dome in the structural sense In this building, a dome-shaped cable network is supported on a ring of masts". It has been disparagingly referred to as the Millennium Tent.
The canopy is high in the middle – for each week of the year and is made of durable and weather-resistant PTFE-coated glass fibre fabric panels, with each of the 72 segments containing two panels. Its symmetry is interrupted by a hole through which a ventilation shaft from the Blackwall Tunnel rises. Six segments were destroyed during Storm Eunice on 18 February 2022.
Built in 15 months, the dome structure was delivered under budget, at a cost of £43m.
The critic Jonathan Meades has scathingly referred to the Millennium Dome as a "Museum of Toxic Waste", and apart from the dome itself, the project included the reclamation of the entire Greenwich Peninsula. The land was previously derelict and contaminated by toxic sludge from East Greenwich Gas Works that operated from 1889 to 1985. The clean-up operation was seen by the then Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine as an investment that would add a large area of useful land to the crowded capital.
Background to the Dome project
The Dome project was conceived, originally on a somewhat smaller scale, under John Major's Conservative government, as a Festival of Britain or World's Fair-type showcase to celebrate the third millennium. The incoming Labour government elected in 1997 under Tony Blair greatly expanded the size, scope and funding of the project, and construction began in June 1997. It also significantly increased expectations of what would be delivered. Just before its opening Blair claimed the Dome would be "a triumph of confidence over cynicism, boldness over blandness, excellence over mediocrity". In the words of BBC correspondent Robert Orchard, "the Dome was to be highlighted as a glittering New Labour achievement in the next election manifesto", but criticised in the 2001 Conservative Party manifesto as "banal, anonymous and rootless", and lacking "a sense of Britain's history or culture". Following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, a member of the Dome's board suggested the project be refashioned and extended "to accommodate, for example, a hospital, businesses, charities, private residences, and the whole thing named 'the Princess Diana Centre. The idea was later scrapped.Before its opening, the Dome was excoriated in Iain Sinclair's diatribe, Sorry Meniscus – Excursions to the Millennium Dome, which forecast the hype, the associated political posturing, and the eventual disillusion. The post-exhibition plan had been to convert the Dome into a European football stadium which would last for 25 years: Charlton Athletic at one point considered a possible move but instead chose to redevelop their own stadium. Local team Fisher Athletic were at one time interested in moving to the Dome, but they were considered to have too small a fan base to make this feasible. The Dome was planned to take over the functions performed by the London Arena after its closure. This is the function which The O2 Arena has now undertaken.
Millennium Experience
After a private opening on the evening of 31 December 1999, including a New Year's Eve celebration attended by Queen Elizabeth II, the Millennium Experience at the Dome was open to the public for the whole of 2000, and contained a large number of attractions and exhibits.Millennium Dome Show
The English musician Peter Gabriel issued in 2000 The Story of OVO which was released in a CD-booklet-shaped comic book as part of the CD edition with the title "OVO The Millennium Show". The story of the 2000 Millennium Dome Show based on it. The show opened on 1 January 2000 and was performed 999 times before closing on 31 December of that year. sponsored by Walt Disney World.Exhibits
The interior space was subdivided into 14 zones: "Who We Are", "What We Do" and "Where We Live".Surrounded by the zones was a performance area in the centre of the dome. With music composed by Peter Gabriel and an acrobatic cast of 160, the Millennium Dome Show was performed 999 times over the course of the year. Throughout the year, the specially-commissioned film Blackadder: Back & Forth was shown in Skyscape. There was also the McDonald's Our Town Story project in which each Local Education Authority in the UK was invited to perform a show of their devising which characterised their area and its people.
As well as the above, the first ever series of Techno Games was filmed there and shown on BBC Two the same year.
Other attractions
There were a number of other attractions both in and outside of The Dome. Inside the Dome there was a play area named Timekeepers of the Millennium, The Millennium Coin Minting Press in association with the Royal Mint, the 1951 Festival of Britain Bus, and the Millennium Star Jewels Outside was the Millennium Map, the Childhood Cube, Looking Around, Greenwich Pavilion, the Hanging Gardens at the front of the Dome, as well as a number of other art installations and sculptures.Two of the remaining art installations form the start of The Line, a modern art trail connecting the O2 to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
Financial and management problems
The project was largely reported by the press to have been a failure. During 2000, the organisers repeatedly asked for, and received, more cash from the Millennium Commission, the Lottery body which supported it. There were numerous changes at management and board level, before and during the exhibition; Jennifer Page was sacked as chief executive of the New Millennium Experience Company just one month after the dome's opening. The project came to be seen as closely aligned with Tony Blair's New Labour, making its success or failure politically important. Part of the problem was that the financial predictions were based on an unrealistically high forecast of visitor numbers at 12 million. During the first year that it was open there were approximately 6.5 million visitors – significantly fewer than the approximately 10 million paying visitors that attended the Festival of Britain, which only ran from May to September. Empire Exhibition, Scotland 1938, held in Glasgow, attracted more than 12 million visitors, being open May to October. Unlike the press, visitor feedback was positive; as of August 2000, 87% of visitors said they were satisfied with their visit. It was the most popular admission-paying tourist attraction in 2000, with almost twice as many visitors as the second most visited attraction, Alton Towers.According to the UK National Audit Office, the cost of The Dome at the liquidation of the New Millennium Experience Company in 2002 was £789 million, of which £628 million was covered by National Lottery grants and £189 million through sales of tickets etc. A surplus of £25 million over costs meant that the full lottery grant was not required. The £603 million of lottery money was still £204 million in excess of the original estimate of £399 million required, due to the shortfall in visitor numbers.
Closure and sale of site
The government's difficulties in selling the site became the subject of much critical comment. The amount spent on maintaining the closed building was also criticised. Shortly after it had closed, Lord Falconer reported that The Dome was costing over £1 million per month to maintain.Following closure of the Dome, some Zones were dismantled by the sponsoring organisations, but much of the content was auctioned or donated to Disney World. This included a number of artworks specially commissioned from contemporary British artists. A piece by Gavin Turk was sold for far below his auction price, though Turk stated that he did not think the piece had worked. The Timekeepers of the Millennium attraction was acquired by the Chessington World of Adventures theme park in Surrey. A unique record of the memorabilia and paraphernalia of the Millennium Experience is held by a private collector in the United States. Many of the fixtures and fittings were also purchased by Paul Scally, chairman of Gillingham F.C., for the club's stadium.