The Week UK - 04.04.2020

46 The long read

THE WEEK4April 2020

Asthemillennium

dawned,thePacific

islandersofKiribati

becamethefirstpeople

onEarthtoringinthe

year 2 00 0.Ontheother

sideoftheplanet,final

preparationswereunder

wayfortheopening

ceremonyofthe

MillenniumDome.

Thiswasthenightwhen

10 ,0 00 speciallyinvited

guestswouldfinallysee

whatwasinsidethebig

whitetentinsoutheast

Londonthathadbeenthe

subjectof suchscrutiny

forthe previousfour

years.Ithadtobe perfect.

By 7pminGreenwich,it

wasapparenttherewasa

problem.Alogistical cock-upmeanthundreds ofguestshadnot

received theirticketsthroughthepost. Ticketlessguestshadbeen

instructedtopickthemuponNewYear’sEve atStratford

station,before hoppingonthenewlycompletedJubileelinetothe

Domeforthe festivities.But onthe night, body scannersinstalled

bypoliceatStratfordweren’tworkingand,before long, several

hundredpeople werestuckinthe station. Whentheprime

minister,TonyBlair,arrived twohourslater,angryinvitees,

includingmanynewspapereditors, werestillno closerto

boardingatrain toGreenwich.

There wasmoretroubleto come.

Justbefore 10pm,JenniePage,

theDome’sCEO,heardthat

policehad receivedacalltelling

themtherewasabomb inthe

BlackwallTunnel,whichranbeneaththe Dome. The PMhad

beeninformed,as hadthe Queen,who wasin attendanceto

receiveaspecial ly commissioned honour. In theminutes that

followed, an ashen-faced Blair, as well as thepolice andPage, had

to decidewhether tocancel theUK’s mill enniumcelebration, the

culmination of many years’work and£750mofinvestment.They

carried on.Thecallturned out to beahoax, andthe stranded

guestsatStratford eventually madeit for thecountdown,despite

missing thefestivities beforehand. After fouryears of politicians

andpress forecasting the project’sfailure,by thetimemidnight

struck,it seemedthe people behind theDomehad pulledit off.

Theheadlines toldadifferentstory. “The BlackHoleof Stratford

East”read one. “The £758mdisaster zone”said another.Michael

Heseltine, whosat ontheMillennium Commission, which had

broughtthe Dome to life,blamesthe standstillatStratford. “It

was aPRdisaste r,” he recalled.“Alot of thosewho didn’t get

thereon time were theverypeople whoweregoing to report

the event.” Butfor the thousands involvedin putting on the

Millennium Experience,fromgovernment ministers to service

staff, theworstwasyet to come. For thedurationofthe year that

the Dome was open,itwas perceived asacatastrophe.Richard

Rogers,one ofthearchitects,said in2015 that it“couldn’t have

hadaworsereception”.

Twentyyearslater,itis

stillabywordforNew

Labourhubris.But

lookingback,itisclear

theprevailingnarrative

thattheDomewasa

totalfailureisnotthe

fullstory.

Whenwemetrecently,

Pagespokeofhertime

ontheDomewithdignity.

“Therearealotofthings

Iwillnottalkabout,”

shesaid.In 1995 ,she

becameheadofthe

Millennium Commission,

responsible for deciding

on aonce-in-a-lifetime

exhibitiontomarkthe

new millennium.

InFebruary 1996,

Greenwichwas chosenasthesite,butit wouldbeyearsbeforeit

wasdecidedwhat form theexhibitionitself wouldtake. Atthat

point, thecommission’smosturgenttask was comingupwiththe

structureto houseit.

MikeDavies,who becametheDome’slead architect,knew that

work would needtostartassoonaspossible–fouryears isnot

longforbigprojects.One thingwasclear: what ever else they

did, thesitewasgoingtoneedshelter.“InMarch,wewere onthe

site,anditwasminusfour,” he

toldme.Standingthere inthe

bitterwind,he had his eureka

moment:“Let’sdoamega

cover.”Davies,whoalways

dresses headtotoe inred,is

stillclearlyinfatuatedwiththe

Dome’sdesign.Fortwohours,hetold mehowitembod iedthe

conceptof time.“Twelvemonthsoftheyear,so 12masts, 365

metres in diameter, andwith 24 scallops,like 24 hoursin aday,”

he enthused.The concept fittedthe bill, andwas cheap at £42m.

Over Christmas 1996, Page andher teamsettledonabudgetfor

the wholeMillenniumExperience:£750m, piecedtogetherfrom

sponsorship, National Lottery money andticket revenuefrom

12 million visitors. ButLabour’s landslidevictor yatthe May

1997 election, ending 18years of Toryrule, raisedconcerns the

project mightbeaxed.AsPage’s teamput their planto th enew

Government, theyemphasisedits New Labour-friendly aims.

The Domewould,amongother thin gs, “enhance theworld’s

viewof th eNation”. Despite misgivingsaboutthe cost,scaleand

location, on 19 June,Blair announcedthat Labour wasonboard.

The nextpressingquestionforthe organiserswas: what was the

Dome actually going to be? Therewerenineideas fo r“zones” –

body,mind, spirit,work,rest, play, local,national, global–but

beyond that,notmuch. Only now, twoyears into the project,was

serious thoughtdevoted to the contentsof thisexhibition,already

beingbilled by the government as “the biggest, mostthrilli ng,

most entertaining, most thought-provoking experienceany where

The Millennium Dome:

was it really so bad?

“The £758m disaster zone” on the Greenwich peninsula

Evenbeforeitopened,ithadbecomeabywordforfailureandNewLabourhubris.

Buttwodecadeson,itcouldbetimeforareassessment,saysImogenWest-Knights

“It was billed as the ‘biggest, most thrilling,

most thought-provoking experience on the

planet’. But no one knew what to put in it”