The design of Great Hall of the People

Abstract

This history thesis tries to study the designing and building process of the Great Hall of the People, the place for the highest political meetings of the People’s Republic of China, also an important symbol of the 10th Anniversary of the National Day, and its relationship with the General Road for socialist construction (the main ideology in the early stage of the Second Five-Year Plan). It hopes to explore how this building could be influenced by the individual ideologies of the General Road as "more, faster, better and cheaper", to make an evaluation of these influences and their heritage.With the detailed memories of designers and officials involved, relevant architectural criticism and historical background, research methodology of literature review, and architectural analysis, this paper attempts to study the contemporary background of China’s domestic ideological practices and international environment, so as to achieve a clear understanding of the relationship between the Great Hall and ideology of the General Road.As the main argument, although it is a relatively successful project with a different ending from the Great Leap Forward in the latter part of the Second Five-Year Plan, the Great Hall still only meets the three requirements of the General Road. It fully embodies "more" and is an extreme case under the influence of "faster". It interacts with "better" but does not achieve "cheaper" eventually. The study of its relationship with ideology explains some puzzling aspects of the Great Hall and reveals the General Road as an idealistic but defective way at the same time.