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The Great Hall of the People is located on the west side of Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing and on the south side of West Chang'an Avenue. It faces east and is 336 meters long from north to south, 206 meters wide from east to west, and 46.5 meters high. It covers an area of ​​150,000 square meters and has a construction area of ​​171,800 square meters. This important place for the party, the state and various people's organizations to hold political activities is majestic and solemn, with a unique design and construction style, and can be called world-class. However, perhaps people don't know that Zhou Enlai spent a lot of effort on its architectural design.

Decision to build the Great Hall of the People

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, various state departments concentrated their offices in Zhongnanhai. Zhongnanhai had limited housing, and the party, the military, the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, government agencies, and security forces, many other institutions were working in it, which made it very crowded. Especially after the establishment of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in 1954, there was no office building, but it was squeezed in with the party and government offices in Zhongnanhai, which naturally caused many inconveniences.

In 1956, China completed its first five-year plan ahead of schedule, its economic strength increased greatly, people's living standards improved greatly, and the people's mental outlook changed profoundly. The Communist Party of China enjoyed a high prestige among people of all ethnic groups in the country. So, starting from this year, the central government began to plan to build a large auditorium in Beijing for the Party Central Committee to hold meetings.

After comprehensively considering these issues, Zhou Enlai proposed to build a central office building with a great hall in the middle, which would not only solve the problem of office space for many central agencies, but also solve the problem of a place for the central government to hold large meetings. This opinion was unanimously agreed by other leaders of the CPC Central Committee and democratic parties. However, where the central office building should be built was an urgent issue that needed to be determined. After careful consideration, Zhou Enlai proposed that the issue of building a central office building should be taken into consideration when designing the Tiananmen Square buildings, and that a great hall for 10,000 people could be considered.

Zhou Enlai's plan to build the central office building in Tiananmen Square was practical, but his opinion changed a little: the building to be built in Tiananmen Square was not a central office building with a Great Hall, but a building dedicated to the National People's Congress, in the form of a Great Hall with a capacity of 10,000 or more people, with the function of a central office building inside the Great Hall. The specific location of this Great Hall should be determined in consideration of the overall architectural pattern of Tiananmen Square.

“In the next round of design, I hope to see the square basically take shape.”

In August 1958, Zhou Enlai proposed that the CPC Central Committee and the State Council decide to build a number of major construction projects in Beijing to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China and showcase the construction achievements of the past decade. These buildings pursue the harmony of architectural art, urban planning and humanistic environment. These buildings are completely designed and constructed by Chinese engineers and technicians. Zhou Enlai's opinion and the central government's idea are that among these major construction projects, the Great Hall of 10,000 people should be given the first place, and other projects include: the Revolutionary Museum, the History Museum, the National Theater, the Military Museum, the Science and Technology Museum, the Art Exhibition Hall, the National Culture Palace, the Agricultural Exhibition Hall, etc. (later summarized as the "Ten Major Projects"). The completion time of these major buildings was set before the National Day in 1959. Therefore, the architectural design task of the Great Hall of 10,000 people, which ranked first among these key construction projects, was urgently placed before us.

When Zhou Enlai discussed the "Ten Major Projects" with Peng Zhen, Secretary of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee, and Wan Li, Beijing's Deputy Mayor in charge of urban construction and planning, they both focused on the architectural design of the Great Hall of the People.

◆Designers introduced the design plan of the Great Hall of the People to Zhou Enlai.

Zhou Enlai suggested that well-known architects from all over the country should be transferred to Beijing to participate in the design of this project, and that efforts should be concentrated on the top ten buildings in Beijing. He also specifically mentioned the names of Liang Sicheng, Yang Tingbao, Zhang Kaiji, and Wu Liangyong, and expressed his intention to invite them to participate in the design. According to this opinion, the Beijing Municipal Government immediately issued an invitation to the national architectural community in the name of the Architectural Society of China. As the leaders of various provinces, cities, and autonomous regions attached great importance to this invitation, more than 30 famous architectural design experts came to Beijing within a few days. It was a miracle that so many well-known experts were transferred in such a short time.

After the design and construction personnel were fully mobilized, the architectural design team was also formed at the fastest speed. On September 8, 1958, Wan Li, Secretary of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China and Deputy Mayor of Beijing, made a mobilization report to the experts of the design and construction units in Beijing at the Central Cinema. He pointed out that the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee made a decision to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China on a large scale next year and to showcase China's achievements in all aspects. In his speech, Wan Li particularly emphasized that the Great Hall should be completed as soon as possible, and foreign guests and overseas Chinese would be invited to participate in the National Day activities. The scale that Wan Li talked about at the time was: to build a Great Hall for 10,000 people and a large banquet hall for 5,000 people, as well as a hotel for residence, etc. These projects should be few but fine, both practical and beautiful; they should ensure quality and pay attention to art, and have national style and characteristics.

The first thing to come up with is the overall design plan for Tiananmen Square, because according to the central government's opinion, four of the "Ten Major Buildings", namely the Great Hall of the People, the Revolutionary Museum, the History Museum, and the Grand Theater, are to be arranged within Tiananmen Square. Where to place these four buildings in Tiananmen Square is a question that needs to be considered in advance, and their design and architectural style must also form an inseparable whole with the square.

◆In order to design the Great Hall, workers, students, professors, and design units from all over the country, including the Xi'an Design Institute and the Department of Architecture of Tsinghua University, offered suggestions.In just one month, 84 floor plans and 189 elevation plans were proposed. The picture shows the floor plan (lower picture) and elevation plan (upper picture) they came up with.

At that time, the experts came up with several design plans. These plans were full of unconventional imagination. One plan even proposed to demolish the Zhengyang Gate Tower and the Arrow Tower and build a mass hall in their place. Zhou Enlai did not simply deny the experts' designs. He believed that these designs had their own strengths, and the main thing was to consider the overall situation and choose the best. He asked the Beijing Municipal Planning Bureau to analyze and summarize these plans, and after careful comparison, research and discussion, four were selected. These four plans entered the next round of design, and were further modified and scrutinized, and finally a more mature design plan was put forward.

At this time, Zhou Enlai said: "In the next round of design, I hope to see the square basically take shape." Zhou Enlai's words promoted the design progress. Experts began to work day and night. Zhou Enlai also personally participated in the overall design planning of Tiananmen Square. With his broad mind, Zhou Enlai allowed designers and experts to break the box and design freely.

Zhou Enlai made special considerations about the location of the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square. He proposed that the Great Hall of the People be designed on the west side of Tiananmen Square from the perspectives that the overall Tiananmen Square should form a magnificent pattern, that Chinese architecture emphasizes contrast, that the surrounding buildings should be centripetal to the center of the square, and that it should be convenient for the central work. His opinion was unanimously agreed by the experts and scholars involved in this work and the cadres who organized and directed the construction of the square. According to this idea, the experts further came up with a preliminary plan for the four major buildings of the square to be opposite to each other, namely: the buildings on both sides of the square, the National Grand Theater and the History Museum on the east side, and the Great Hall of the People and the Revolutionary Museum on the west side, facing each other and facing the Monument to the People's Heroes in the center of the square. The four buildings are independent of each other, covering an area of ​​150 meters by 220 meters, and are long from east to west and short from north to south.

At that time, Tiananmen Square was the largest square in the world, equivalent to five Place de la Concorde in Paris, four and a half Red Squares in Moscow, or forty Piazza San Marco in Venice. Designing four buildings on both sides of such a large square was a difficult task for architects, because if the four buildings were designed to be too small, the square would appear empty and would not have a magnificent momentum. However, if each of the four buildings was designed to be large, it would occupy a lot of space, and the space between the two buildings on each side would appear crowded.

This difficult problem was also solved by Zhou Enlai. After repeated thinking and multiple on-site inspections, he finally decided that in order to highlight the political significance of Tiananmen Square, the National Grand Theater should be moved out of the square and moved to the west of the Great Hall. The Revolutionary Museum and the History Museum should be combined into one museum to build the Revolutionary History Museum in the east, and only the Great Hall should be built in the west. This idea fits the traditional Chinese architectural pattern of "left for ancestors and right for communities".

Breaking down barriers

After the address of the Great Hall was determined, there was only one year left before the completion time required by the central government. The most urgent task was to come up with a building design plan. After the invited architectural experts from various places arrived in September 1958, they formed a design expert group for the Great Hall. In fact, they were under the leadership of the Planning Bureau, and the design plan was also reported in the name of the Beijing Municipal Planning Bureau. The enthusiasm of the experts participating in the design work was very high. The design began on September 10, and on September 15, the first draft of the design plan for the Great Hall was produced. After revisions, the second draft of the design plan was soon produced. After careful discussion and repeated deliberation, the expert group made many revisions. On September 20, the expert group produced the third draft of the design plan. It took only 10 days to produce three drafts of the design plan, which was quite fast.

Although the first, second and third drafts of the design plan were more mature than the last, and each draft was carefully studied and reviewed by the leaders of the Planning Bureau, the three drafts were not very ideal for various reasons. Everyone was very anxious because if the design plan was not finalized, the subsequent transportation of raw materials, organization of construction teams, and groundbreaking would not be possible.

The person in charge of the Great Hall of Architecture reported the situation to Zhou Enlai, who specifically instructed that the expert group should not close its doors, but open them to solicit opinions from many parties more widely. Zhou Enlai particularly emphasized that the selection of people to join the design expert group should be eclectic. We should of course invite old and well-known experts, but we should also invite young and outstanding architectural design experts; we should widely solicit the opinions of the younger generation of architectural designers, as there are many excellent architectural designers among young people, and their opinions should be valued. According to this opinion, many young designers were absorbed into the expert group, and finally young designers accounted for the majority of the expert group, with people with expertise in various fields. Not only did it change the age structure of the expert group, but also the knowledge and technical structure, forming a design group that promotes each other, learns from each other's strengths and weaknesses, and improves together.

Zhou Enlai also proposed that the design of the Great Hall and other buildings in Tiananmen Square should not be designed by the Planning Bureau alone. We should be broad-minded, break the isolation of architectural design, and brainstorm. In addition to the design of the Great Hall by the Planning Bureau's design expert group, we should also ask Tsinghua University and Beijing Institute of Architectural Design to each come up with a set of design plans. The advantage of doing so is that in addition to brainstorming, we can also refer to various different design ideas and styles and have room for choice. According to Zhou Enlai's opinion, the Beijing Municipal Committee immediately asked Tsinghua University and Beijing Institute of Architectural Design to organize expert design teams to design the Great Hall and other buildings in Tiananmen Square, focusing on the design of the Great Hall.

Zhou Enlai was open-minded and did not stick to any particular design style. He was willing to put forward any design style.

Beijing attaches great importance to the architectural expert design teams of the three units and carefully deliberates on their design plans. In the process of designing the architectural plan, the design expert team came up with many design plans, each with its own strengths. After seven rounds of evaluation and demonstration, none of them satisfied the majority. The main problem is that as the design projects continue to increase and new functions are constantly proposed, the design building area must be expanded accordingly. However, the central government originally stipulated that the building area of ​​the Great Hall was 70,000 square meters. Although Tiananmen Square is already very large, the area for larger buildings is still limited. The land to the west and southwest of the square was not as vast as it is today. The functions of the Great Hall have been continuously expanded, but the building area cannot be increased accordingly, which makes the architectural designers feel that they have no place to use their skills. Some architectural designers describe it as "building a temple in a snail shell" and "dancing in shackles."

By the National Day of 1958, the architectural design plan had not yet been produced. At this time, it was less than a year before the completion and use time required by the central government. The leaders of Beijing were anxious, the Planning Bureau was anxious, and the designers were anxious. Liu Ren, the leader of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee, reported the situation to Zhou Enlai and expressed his anxiety. Zhou Enlai comforted him and said, "Don't worry, the Great Hall can be built in one year and repaired in five years." But Zhou Enlai was more anxious than anyone else. When he learned that the difficulty of the building area was limited to 70,000 square meters, he immediately said: Break the barriers, design according to actual needs, expand the area, and design as large as needed. Zhou Enlai's opinion broke the original design area limit and laid the foundation for the grandeur of today's Great Hall of the People.

Finalization of the design plan for the Great Hall

With Zhou Enlai's suggestion, Liu Ren, deputy secretary of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee, was very happy and immediately found the comrade in charge of the design work and said: "We can exceed the building area of ​​70,000 square meters and the planned land area of ​​140 meters × 270 meters. The architectural design plan must break the barriers and design according to the actual area required. All the current plans are discarded and we should start from scratch and come up with a brand new design plan for the Great Hall of 10,000 people as soon as possible."

After Zhou Enlai broke the building area barrier, the design expert group members were very happy. They could finally let go of their hands and feet to design. After breaking the building area barrier, the next step was to design the "shape" of the Great Hall. This is a very critical link, because the "shape" of this building plays an important role in the subsequent internal structure design.

◆In order to have a more intuitive understanding of the entire plan, the design and construction department at that time also made a model like this. From this "sand table" 50 years ago, one can clearly imagine how spectacular the Great Hall and Tiananmen Square will be after they are completed.

When Zhou Enlai carefully reviewed the preliminary plan proposed by the designers, he clearly stated that he agreed with the Western-style colonnade structure. He raised this opinion again to Liu Ren. According to this opinion, the designers soon came up with a new design plan: the plan of the Great Hall is in the shape of a "convex" character, with the Grand Banquet Hall, the Grand Auditorium and the Standing Committee Office Building arranged in sequence from north to south. The three parts are connected by the central hall, the banquet hall is placed on the second floor, and the Grand Auditorium is moved to a position slightly west of the center. As for the facade plan, the Western-style colonnade structure that had been approved by the Prime Minister in the previous rounds of design was used, and the design height exceeded that of the Forbidden City. Overall, the design is magnificent, maintaining the traditional Chinese architectural style while absorbing contemporary architectural design elements. In terms of material use, it basically considers the use of the most advanced building materials at the time.

Each expert in the design expert group of the three units worked very hard and seriously, and they were also racing against time. Among them, the expert group of the Planning Bureau had the most members, and held the most meetings and discussions, which were the most heated. They already had the basis for the third draft of the design, and after receiving instructions from Zhou Enlai, they discussed and designed almost day and night, and made revisions after the discussion, and revised the drafts many times. Their efforts attracted the attention of the Planning Bureau and Beijing leaders.

At 10:00 pm on October 6, the responsible comrades of Beijing Municipality and the National Day Project Design Headquarters personally delivered the three design plans of the Planning Bureau Expert Group, Beijing Architectural Design Institute, and Tsinghua University Department of Architecture to the Prime Minister's Office in the West Flower Hall of Zhongnanhai, and reported to Zhou Enlai in person, asking him to review these architectural design plans. After listening to the report carefully, Zhou Enlai carefully read the various plans. He believed that the plan for the Great Hall of the People designed by the Beijing Architectural Design Institute was better, and suggested that the design units study their own plans again.

◆At the end of 1958, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and others were reviewing the architectural design plans for Tiananmen Square and the Great Hall of the People.

The responsible comrades of Beijing Municipality and the National Day Project Design Headquarters came back from Zhongnanhai and conveyed Zhou Enlai's opinions to the three design units. The experts of the three units attached great importance to this opinion. Perhaps it was because they heard Zhou Enlai's words that Beijing Architectural Design Institute was better that the experts of the Planning Bureau were touched and wanted to compete, so they acted the fastest. After listening to the leader's communication, they discussed it overnight, made modifications according to Zhou Enlai's instructions overnight, and soon came up with a new plan. After soliciting opinions from all over the country, the expert group made 84 plane drawings and 189 three-dimensional drawings.

On October 14, 1958, Zhou Enlai, who had just returned to Beijing from other places, immediately asked his secretary to notify the responsible comrades of the Beijing Municipal Planning Bureau to come to Zhongnanhai. He presided over a meeting in the West Flower Hall overnight to review the design plan of the Great Hall. At the meeting, Zhou Enlai and the comrades who came to attend the meeting jointly reviewed the three plans designed by Tsinghua University, Beijing Architectural Design Institute, and Beijing Municipal Planning Bureau, and looked at the three plans in detail. The plan of Tsinghua University and Beijing Architectural Design Institute is smaller in scale, while the design plan of the expert group of the Planning Bureau is 170,000 square meters, magnificent, and has a central hall. This made Zhou Enlai pay more attention to the plan designed by the expert group of the Beijing Municipal Planning Bureau when reviewing the three design plans. Everyone present could see that Zhou Enlai was very fond of the design plan of the Planning Bureau. At 1 a.m. on October 16, Zhou Enlai said in a decisive tone: Use the design plan of the Beijing Municipal Planning Bureau. At this point, the "body" design plan of the Great Hall was basically determined.

Two lines of ancient poetry solve big problems

The overall design of the Great Hall was finalized, but there were still two important issues facing design experts and scholars: The first issue was: the Great Hall for 10,000 people occupies nearly half of the 170,000 square meters of space. How to eliminate the sense of oppression in such a large space? The second issue was: such a large space with a high and mighty presence, an ordinary person would feel small and oppressed when he walked in, but the people are the masters of the new China, and the Great Hall is a place for people to discuss politics. The design of our Great Hall must make everyone feel like a master when they walk in. This is a contradiction.

Under such circumstances, the experts thought of Zhou Enlai again. In early December 1958, Zhang Bo, an expert with the above two major issues, went to the West Flower Hall to report to Zhou Enlai. After listening, Zhou Enlai pondered for a moment and chanted two lines of ancient poetry: "The setting sun and the solitary wild goose fly together, and the autumn water and the sky are the same color." Zhang Bo did not understand what Zhou Enlai meant for a while. Zhou Enlai smiled and said, "When people stand on the ground, they don't feel how high the sky is; when they stand on the seashore, they don't feel how far the sea is. The phrase 'The setting sun and the solitary wild goose' should be inspiring to us. Why not start from the artistic conception of the sky and water blending into one and do an abstract treatment?" Zhou Enlai gestured with his hands and drew on a piece of paper with a pencil, saying, "There are no straight hard lines on the four sides of the auditorium, which is a bit like the boundless nature. The ceiling can be made into a large dome shape to symbolize the celestial space. The junction of the ceiling and the wall can be made into a large rounded shape to connect the zenith and the four walls. Without edges, edges, and corners, we can get an effect of seamless integration of the top and bottom, diluting the stiffness and oppression."

◆In the Great Hall, you can see "stars in the sky" when you look up, and you won't feel depressed or heavy at all.

Zhou Enlai used the artistic conception of two ancient poems to associate the design of the conference hall of the Great Hall of the People, and talked about a brand new design idea. This was something that none of the architectural design experts at the time had thought of. They all admired Zhou Enlai. The architectural design problem that everyone had been thinking hard about but could not solve was successfully solved under the inspiration of his two ancient poems. According to his opinion, the design ideas and plans for the conference hall of the Great Hall of the People were basically determined. In the subsequent design, in order to reflect the feeling of "water and sky are one color", the dome of the Great Hall of the People was designed with three circles of water-wave-shaped dark light troughs, which echoed the light blue plastic plates installed around it. When the lights were on, it was like waves. There were nearly 500 light holes on the entire dome. When people sat in the audience seats, they could see "stars" when they looked up, as if they were in the vast night sky, and they would not feel depressed or heavy at all. There are millions of small sound-absorbing holes on the huge dome of the Great Hall of the People. The excess sound waves emitted from the rostrum are completely absorbed, and people sitting in every corner can clearly hear the voice of the speaker. The two major problems of the large space have been fundamentally solved.

Participated in the design of the interior layout of the Great Hall

When the experts were designing the "shape" of the Great Hall, they also considered the interior design. After Zhou Enlai personally determined the "shape" of the Great Hall, the experts started the interior architectural design. Zhou Enlai worked with the experts on the design. When studying and discussing the design plan with the architectural design experts, Zhou Enlai regarded himself as an ordinary participant. It was often the case that the experts sat on chairs and Zhou Enlai stood beside them to discuss the design modification plan with the experts. This was not only a matter of being approachable, but also made the experts and scholars feel that Zhou Enlai was a member working with them. Whenever Zhou Enlai discussed and studied with everyone to unify their understanding, he would make a decision on the spot in a timely manner. This ensured the speed and quality of the construction of the Great Hall.

◆Tiananmen Square under the blue sky and the Great Hall of the People under the rising sun are solemn and dignified.

Finally, the Great Hall formed the layout that people see now: the East Gate is the main entrance of the Great Hall of the People and the entrance to the 10,000-person auditorium. The national emblem is hung above the golden copper door. The square in front of the gate is used for welcoming state guests and reviewing the three-service guard of honor. Entering the Great Hall of the People, passing through the wind gate hall and the hall, you will reach the central hall with an area of ​​3,600 square meters. The walls and floors of the central hall are paved with colored marble. There are 20 white marble columns around it. There is a 12-meter-wide corridor in the middle floor, and there are 6 main entrances leading to the 10,000-person auditorium. The 10,000-person auditorium is 76 meters wide from north to south, 60 meters deep from east to west, and 33 meters high. It is a dome, large span, and column-free structure. The auditorium is fan-shaped in plan, and you can see the rostrum from any position. Each seat on the first floor is equipped with an electronic service unit for conference representatives, which can provide simultaneous interpretation in 12 languages ​​and real-time statistics of motion votes. Each seat on the second and third floors is equipped with a speaker, and the voice of the rostrum can be clearly heard. The Great Hall has a reception hall, a state guest meeting hall, a state guest banquet hall, a "golden hall", an office building of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, etc. It also has 33 local conference halls, each of which has distinct local characteristics. Representatives from provinces, cities and autonomous regions feel like they are at home when they hold meetings and discuss politics in local conference halls.

After the completion of the Great Hall of China, which was designed under the personal guidance and participation of Zhou Enlai, it has received unanimous praise from people at home and abroad. For decades, it has been convenient and practical, demonstrating the great power of New China. It has been associated with Zhou Enlai's name, so that many people think of Zhou Enlai when they enter the Great Hall of China. It is also a fine piece of Chinese and foreign architecture. 40 years after its completion, it also won the "20th Century Contemporary Chinese Architecture Art Award".

Editor: Hou Mengwei

Editor: Wang Yuanyuan

Editor: Xiang Dongmin