Chongqing People's Auditorium

The Chongqing People's Auditorium is a large hall for major meetings and events in Yuzhong, Chongqing, China. It was built from June 1951 to April 1954 in the style of Ming and Qing palaces, to a design by Zhang Jiade, and it is 65 metres high. A round hall with a dome sits in the middle, under three tiers of green-glazed roof eaves, with long wings on both sides.

The building is symmetrical, with colonnades and wings that include pavilion towers. It covers 66,000 square metres in total, and the main auditorium itself covers 18,500 square metres. It is a Chongqing landmark that looks like a Chinese palace, and it is sometimes compared to the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

The great round hall

The circular domed auditorium is 55 metres high with an inner diameter of 46.33 metres. Five storeys of viewing areas run around it, and it can seat 4,200 people. The round hall was modelled on the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, as the model's description says. The whole building has a large auditorium and three adjoining parts to the east, south and north.

Who built it

Construction was supported by Liu Bocheng, Deng Xiaoping and He Long, who were leaders of the Communist Party's Southwest Bureau at the time. It took almost three years, from June 1951 to April 1954. The model's description names Zhang Jiade as the designer.

Today

Today the hall is the meeting place of Chongqing's city lawmaking bodies, the Municipal People's Congress and the People's Political Consultative Conference. You can see the building from the People's Square below it, and across the square is the Three Gorges Museum.

On the globe

The model shows the round hall under green-glazed eaves, with long wings and pavilion towers.