Millennium Dome was built in the year 2000 and was opened for 1 year as a public attraction. It was left empty and disused for 7 years and so was sold to the company AEG who bought it for entertainment purposes and as a tourist attraction for public use, it is now called the O2 Arena. There are many activities to do at the O2, from films to theatre to seeing your favourite band, but the coolest thing you can do there, which is very expensive, is climb over and across the top of the dome! It was 26 pounds and unfortunately I didn’t have enough of the money but I got a good photo of the walkway and the people on top of it.
The building is 365 metres in diameter, which is one metre for every day of the year and there are 12 masts which stand 100 metres tall, for each month of the year.

 

Lifecycle and construction of building

 

The 100 metre tall masts are made of steel and the tent canapé is a PTF coated glass fibre fabric. The company Buro Happold did the structural engineering of the millennium dome and Richard Rogers was the main architect. Construction on the Millennium Dome started in 1997 but was commissioned by the government in 1993 and arrangements for the construction were further discussed in 1994. The millennium dome was built to raise money for the celebrations of the new millennium and for attractions and gallery’s, it also held the famous millennium star diamond which was almost stolen in November of the year 2000.
Now the dome is used for public facilities and entertainment purposes where it contains a cinema, a theatre, small shops and coffee outlets.
On the wall inside the O2 arena as you walk into the cinema on the right there is a big wall with all the names of the people involved in the making of the dome.

I sat down and drew the arena from where I’d taken the first photo because that’s where I could see most of the shape of the fabric and structure of the masts.