The Millennium Dome is probably one of the biggest architectural failures of recent times (along with the Burj Dubai that got shut down almost as soon as it opened!) It was built to celebrate the millennium and was opened as an exhibition to the public on January 1st 2000 and ran for a year until 31 December 2000. However the project and exhibition came under a lot of flack and political controversy because it failed to attract the number of visitors it had hoped for, which led to recurring financial problems.
The exhibition and insides of the Dome was soon knocked down and lay dormant for a year, which in itself cause a lot of uproar when it was reported by Lord Falconer that it was still costing £1 million per month to maintain. However in December 2001 it was announced that Meridian Delta Ltd would be taking over ownership from the government and it was going to build up a community on the surrounding land and the Dome would become a huge sports and entertainment centre. In may 2005 it was officially renamed as The 02 and has been holding big events in ever since.
The huge dome is the largest of its type in the world and has 12 100m high support towers on it, which is meant to represent each month of the year or each hour on a clocks face. It is also 365m in diameter, one metre for every day of the year. Even with all the controversy it is still one of the best known landmarks in the UK and if you are flying to London you should be able to spot it at some point.
So that is basically the Millennium Dome or The 02, Started off shaky but has now become one of the best music venues in London.
#1 by Adam_Y on July 8th, 2010
I remember being horrified when I found out (rather late in the day) that the dome was to be a ‘temporary’ structure. The original plan didn’t include an afterlife as an arena… I think it just highlighted the fact that our government, indeed our country, was so short sighted.
The point I’m getting to, I guess, is that next up we have the Olympics, and again substantial construction work is under way with very little thought for what we are going to do with everything after they are finished.
I suspect the large arenas may be used as some sort of concentration camp for the destitute, or as a base of operations for NATO.
Adam_Y´s last blog ..iBleed
#2 by William K Wallace on July 8th, 2010
I have been to a few gigs at the Indigo2 venue inside the O2 and it is a great mid sized venue, plenty of good bars and places to eat at the O2, even though they are all a tad bit on the expensive side.