For those who come to the capital for the first time, in addition to famous attractions such as the Forbidden City and the Great Wall, there is also a sacred building that cannot be missed on Beijing's 100-mile long street, that is, the Great Hall of the People.
The writer Bing Xin described it this way: "Walking into the Great Hall of the People, you suddenly revered and solemnly descended, as if a drop of water had been thrown into the ocean, feeling the smallness of a drop of water, and feeling the boundless magnificence of the ocean." ”
And this is also the first impression of many people on it.
This building, which was completed in 1959, has touched many hearts since its construction, and Chairman Mao has often supervised the construction of the Great Hall of the People.
On September 9, 1959, as soon as the Great Hall of the People was completed, Chairman Mao came to the Great Hall of the People with great interest, nodded his head from time to time, suddenly attracted the attention of the ceiling, and smiled: "Whose idea is this?" ”
What exactly did Chairman Mao see? Who designed the ceiling?
When it comes to the construction of the Great Hall of the People, it is certainly inseparable from Chairman Mao. The first to propose the construction of a large hall to accommodate ten thousand people was Chairman Mao. In 1945, chairman Mao proposed at the Seventh National Congress that after the victory of the revolution, a large auditorium of ten thousand people could be built.
However, due to various reasons, it was not until August 1958 that the central government passed a resolution at the meeting, saying that a large number of key projects would be built in Beijing on the 10th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, and the first place was to build a "Hall of Ten Thousand People".
After receiving this news, Wan Li, then secretary of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee and vice mayor, held a meeting at the municipal government to discuss the content of building the Great Hall of Ten Thousand People. In order to build this 10,000-person Hall, the participants believed that not only should design opinions be widely solicited, but also that other experienced countries should be visited.
The Beijing Municipal Government adopted the opinions of the participants, asked the Planning Bureau to send people to the Soviet Union to investigate, sent invitation letters to relevant experts from all over the country, and set up a National Day Engineering Design Leading Group and a Design Group for the Great Hall.
Soon after, the Planning Bureau made an inspection and made a report. At the same time, the General Assembly Hall design team also selected 8 design proposals in a very short period of time.
But don't look at these 8 plans, they were selected in a very short time, but in fact, in "this very short period of time", 84 flat plans were proposed, and 189 plans were proposed, in order to select the most suitable plan, there were many, many debates during this period.
For example, the center of the main entrance of the Great Hall should not face the Monument to the People's Heroes; the height of the Great Hall should not exceed Tiananmen Square? Fortunately, these problems have been very well solved under the supervision of Premier Zhou and other leaders.
Subsequently, after drawing on the advantages of the 8 design schemes and soliciting opinions extensively, Tsinghua University, the Beijing Architectural Design Institute and the Beijing Municipal Planning Bureau each made a comprehensive plan.
On October 23, 1958, after discussion, the central government finally chose the beijing Municipal Planning Bureau and made a comprehensive design plan. On October 25 of the same year, the construction headquarters carried out a pre-war mobilization, and the workers were full of energy and energy.
Three days later, the genius had just dawned, and the rest of Beijing was quiet, but the construction site of the Great Hall was already boiling, and the sound of mechanical digging, manual digging pits, and the sound of cheering between workers intersected to form a beautiful song.
Construction site of the General Assembly Hall
According to the design plan, the overall area of the Great Hall is larger than the Forbidden City, and only the auditorium itself is 60 meters long, 76 meters wide, 45 meters high and 33 meters high. In addition to the main hall that can accommodate more than 5,000 people, the banquet hall also has a friendship hall, a small banquet hall, two floors of picking platforms, respectively, 29 meters and 22 meters outside, such a large and complex structure, very rare in China, and even rare in the world.
It can be seen how difficult it was to build this hall of 10,000 people, coupled with the fact that the industrial level in China at that time was not very high, and many high-tech technologies were not yet available, which made the construction process even more difficult, but the construction personnel were not intimidated by the difficulties at all.
On that cold and windy winter night, the workers worked in the foundation pit 9 meters deep, their hands were often frozen unconscious, but they were still working non-stop.
When building the office building of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, which started late, due to the urgency of time, 68 people on the scene formed a steel company, three shifts fought day and night, regardless of the north wind roaring, fought hard for 9 days and nights, and finally completed the task of lashing 680 tons of steel bars, which has to be said to be a miracle!
While the workers were fighting in the front line of construction, Chairman Mao, Premier Zhou, and other central leaders did not idle. In order to ensure the smooth completion of the task, Chairman Mao, Premier Zhou, and General Manager Zhu all supervised the whole process and asked the secretary of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee to make regular reports. At the beginning of December 1958, the central government also held a meeting to formally discuss the project.
Among them, the central authorities are most concerned about security issues. Premier Zhou, who was in charge of everything on the day, tossed and turned after hearing the rumors of security problems.
Late at night, Premier Zhou hurriedly summoned Wanli and others to listen to the report on the construction of the Great Hall and exhorted: "We must do a good job in the structural safety of the Great Hall, this is the most important thing, and we must not be sloppy." ”
Not only that, Premier Zhou also personally inspected the materials used in the construction of the Great Hall, and did not allow any material problems and construction problems, and instructed that the Great Hall should not only be good and beautiful, but also have its own style, but also be safe, and its life expectancy should be at least 350 years.
On September 9, 1959, the construction of the Great Hall of Ten Thousand People was finally completed, and from October 1958 to September 1959, it took only 10 months to build the complex Great Hall, which is simply a miracle and the pride of the people of the whole Chinese.
Hearing that the Great Hall had been built, Chairman Mao could not contain the excitement in his heart, so he accompanied Wanli to the site of the Great Hall. Chairman Mao looked at the building in front of him, smiled with satisfaction on his face, and then asked, "Why do you call this building now?" ”
Wanli replied, "It is generally called 'Great Hall' or 'Great Hall of People'. Chairman Mao listened and said that this was built by the people and belonged to the people, so let's call it the "Great Hall of the People." Thus, the Great Hall of Ten Thousand People had its own name.
After returning to Zhongnanhai from the Great Hall of the People, Chairman Mao still could not sleep, so he opened his eyes until dawn, and early the next morning, accompanied by Wanli, the chairman once again came to the great hall of the people after the completion of the project.
Chairman Mao smiled and shook hands with the workers involved in the project, and the workers were very excited to see Chairman Mao. Surrounded by the crowd, Chairman Mao walked through the banquet hall, walked through the auditorium, walked up to the rostrum, looked around the entire venue, looked up at the ceiling, and suddenly smiled: "Whose idea is this? ”
As he spoke, Chairman Mao's hand pointed to the ceiling. When the people looked up, they found that on the ceiling, there were inlaid sunflower sun-oriented lamps, and now the lights were on, just like the stars in the sky. Wan Li retracted his gaze and said to Chairman Mao, "Chairman, this was built according to Premier Zhou's instructions. ”
At that time, after selecting the design plan, many builders felt that the net height of the Great Hall was 33 meters, which was too high, and people standing inside would appear very small, but if they lowered a little, plus two floors of picking platforms, it would make people feel a little depressed.
After learning this, Premier Zhou said: "We stand under the sky and feel that the sky is high, and standing on the seashore does not feel that the water is far away." Then he said that it is not possible to make some changes on the lights in the Great Hall, not to make traditional lights, but to do a good job of coordination, designed into a style of water and sky, so that they can be integrated.
At the direction of Premier Zhou, the staff finally designed the ceiling that Chairman Mao now sees: the central position is a huge five-pointed star lamp, emitting 70 rays of light, surrounded by 40 sunflower petals, 500 stars, and three layers of water wave-shaped lamp slots.
And those lamps symbolize the unity of the people of all nationalities, under the leadership of the Party, toward victory, and those waves of water represent the cause of the revolution higher than the waves.
After hearing Wanli say that the designer of the ceiling was Premier Zhou, Chairman Mao smiled knowingly, he had worked with Premier Zhou for so many years, and naturally understood Premier Zhou's intentions. Chairman Mao looked up at the ceiling a few more times and nodded as he watched.
Then Chairman Mao came out of the hall, and when he came to the welcome hall, he saw the blank wall and asked what was to be hung here. The staff said that they would hang a huge Chinese painting with the theme of "so many delicate rivers and mountains". Chairman Mao seemed very happy to receive this answer.
Soon, Chairman Mao inspected the Great Hall of the People, and along the way he was full of spring breezes, yes, a long time ago, the chairman said that after the victory of the revolution, a great hall for tens of thousands of people to meet will be built, and now that language has become a reality, how can he not be happy?
After Chairman Mao's inspection, the Great Hall of the People was also smoothly handed over for use, and Mei Lanfang, a master of Peking Opera, immediately performed in the Great Hall to comfort the construction army. On September 29 of this year, the banquet for the tenth anniversary of the National Day was held in the banquet hall of 5,000 people in the Great Hall of the People.
Since then, the Great Hall of the People has officially entered the lives of Chinese people and the political stage of the mainland. Up to now, every year, many people, including people from the mainland and some foreign guests, come to the Great Hall of the People to visit.
And whenever people walk into the Great Hall of the People, they will be shocked by this condensed, countless Chinese people's sweat and wisdom. Decades have passed, the Great Hall of the People has gone through decades of ups and downs, it is not only a building, but also the pride of every Chinese!)