Millenium Dome

"The ultimate inspiration for the Dome was a great sky, a cosmos under which all events take place – the radial lines and circles of the high-tensile roof structure recall the celestial reference grid of astronomical maps throughout the ages." - Mike Davies, Project Partner for the Millennium Dome

The installation was initially conceived as a complex of 12 separate pavilions surrounding an open arena, but with the exposed nature of the site and the fact that the experience was to continue throughout the year, it was proposed to have a single ‘umbrella’ enclosing the whole exhibition site, with several pavilions (or zones) contained within it.

The idea of time was uppermost in the mind of its architects; the 12 hours, the 12 months, and the 12 constellations of the sky that measure time are all integral to the original concept.

The concept used the idea of a long span cable net structure, suspended from twelve masts.

The Millennium Experience was widely seen as an event in the mould of the 1951 Festival of Britain and was proposed as the central celebratory event of a nationwide festival to celebrate the millennium.

Currently the Dome is an entertainment hub known as The O2 and features the 20,000 capacity O2 Arena – one of the world's most successful music venues – at its heart.

The fabric skin was connected to tension cables by a team of abseiling construction workers and, at the height of the project, shortly before completion, there were over 1,500 people on site.

The entire Dome enclosure, complete with its 12 attached service cores containing chillers, switch-rooms, generators and sprinkler tanks, was handed over to the client for the exhibition fit-out in autumn 1998; on time and well under budget.