The Art of Modern Architecture

1. Building No. 1: Millennium Dome

In 1994 a public announcement was made in England that a year long festival, named the Millennium Experience, would be held in the year 2000. A new building would be required to host the exhibition and the Millennium Dome was chosen to do exactly that, particularly with its shape reminiscent of a circus tent.

Designed by Richard Rogers, the Millennium Dome is located on a 300 acre site in Greenwich, London on the South Bank of the Thames. Before the Dome was constructed this site had been used by British Gas to dispose of toxic waste, so site remediation and decontamination was first required, and then a ventilation shaft from the underground Blackwall Tunnel also incorporated into the design, before construction could commence.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the Dome’s design is not the dome shaped roof but actually the twelve steel masts that support the cabling required for the roof canopy. The masts reach high into the sky and provide a very different architectural experience of old London, which is exactly what Richard Rogers and Mike Davies, the Project Director, intended. It was intended to be different, to be big (the circumference of the dome is 1 kilometre) and to encourage optimism about the new millennium.

While the Millennium Experience only continued for the planned period, and wasn’t warmly received by most given the expense involved and the low turnout (around 10% of the British population attended), the Millennium Dome has since been used for concerts and sporting events, Christmas festivities and even as a homeless shelter option during winter. At a cost of £43 million the Millennium Dome has been criticised but still stands as a triumphant symbol of the optimism with which the new millennium was welcomed, with then Prime Minister Tony Blair stating:

We will celebrate the millennium with a new dynamism in our country. The Millennium Dome symbolises this dynamism!