Architecture: Pop goes the Millennium Dome
Why shouldn't an architect break out of the stereotype? Mike Davies only wanted some fun with his most famous work
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Your support makes all the difference.AT FIVE minutes past midnight 10 days ago, Mike Davies, the senior partner of Richard Rogers architects, floated across the MTV screen with his invention, the Dome, to the music of Indian Ropeman. With its silvery Teflon coat and yellow masts flung wide, the Dome looked fantastic. So did Mike Davies, who naturally dresses like a pop star, always in red, with crimson, pointed boots. With his wispy beard he even looks like Meat Loaf.
When I tried to find out more, the Richard Rogers & Partners spin doctor knew nothing about it. The Millennium Experience claimed that the only footage of Mike at the Dome was taken "ages ago, sitting down, talking", and promptly called in the pop group's promo video for "Sunshine of your Love" with the intention of removing it from public viewing. So you may never again have an opportunity to see Mike Davies grooving on TV with his invention, which is a shame, because architects rarely appear in any medium except as megalomaniac killjoys. Take Frank Lloyd Wright, the cantankerous inspiration for Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. Or the obnoxious architect of a smart office block in Philip Kerr's novel, locked in his office by a murderous computer, who was based on the autocratic and bad-tempered James Stirling.
Once again the Millennium Experience people have blundered, determinedly taking all the fun out of the Dome while claiming they are hushing up everything to leave us some surprises when it opens. But they still haven't quite managed to stop the Dome from becoming a star in its own right.
The Millennium Dome will dominate the opening squence in the next James Bond film, The World is Not Enough (to be released on 19 November), dwarfing London as Bond - at the helm of a motor launch - races up the Thames towards Greenwich.
Although the Dome's slippery, glass-fibre coated roof which stands 50 metres tall is strong enough to support the weight of a Jumbo jet, it sheds stuntmen as easily as the rainwater it recycles for the lavatories. The sections of it which have been built a lot closer to the ground at Pinewood Studios for filming Bond close-ups are a reminder of its awesome dimensions. It's a kilometre in circumference, covering 80,000 square metres and big enough to fit Wembley Stadium twice. Its 12 yellow masts, each weighing 100 tons, once assembled on site, were all hoisted into place in just 17 days, which made the project engineers, Bruro Happold, very proud. The masts hold 43 miles of cable to tension the 100,000 square metres of fabric which the flamboyant Mike Davies typically road-tested himself at home, inbcluding spraying it with graffiti and setting fire to it.
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