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172 
'Off-sight' hold-ups
Page 82
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JUST AS strapless gowns on 3kinny girls can be an awful letlown, so the 750-tonne roof of he new £7m Hall 7 at the Vational Exhibition Centre at Birningham seems to be inviting iisaster. It is without visible means of support and threatens to flatten the great display of parts and accessories by more than 100 exhibitors to which the hall is devoted.
But all is well. The 10,000sqm roof hangs by unseen hollowsteel tension tubes from eight masts 120ft high.
Despite the three-month steel strike, the hall was completed two months ahead of schedule. Difficulties were avoided because, the SMMT says, "most of the construction was put together and finished off-sight" [sic]. The assemblers did not, however, work with their eyes closed. They must rather have been watching the clock.