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The O2
The O2 is a large dome shaped building on the Greenwich peninsula in south-east London. From its construction in 1999 up until May 2005, the structure was known as "The Millennium Dome". The renaming to The O2 marks the sponsorship of the venue by the phone company of the same name.
The O2 is the largest single roofed structure in the world with twelve 95 m-high yellow support towers, one for each month of the year. In plan view it is circular, 365 m in diameter - one metre for each day of the year. It has become one of the United Kingdom's most recognisable landmarks.
The building structure was engineered by Buro Happold, and the entire roof structure actually weighs less than the air contained within the building. Although called a dome it is not strictly one as it is not self supporting but is a mast-supported, dome-shaped cable network.
During the whole of 2000 the Dome was open to the public, and contained a large number of attractions and exhibits but was largely reported by the press to have been a flop and has since closed. Project Work is currently under way to convert the building into an indoor arena which will be used for pop concerts and other entertainment.
At the 2012 Summer Olympic Games it will be used for the artistic gymnastics and trampolining, for which it will have a spectator capacity of 16,500, and for the basketball finals, for which it will have a capacity of 20,000. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Dome)
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