Tsinghua auditorium

Auditorium of Tsinghua University

synonym

Tsinghua auditorium generally refers to the auditorium of Tsinghua University

The auditorium of Tsinghua University is located in the middle of Tsinghua University, facing the second school gate across the lawn. It was built in the United States, and together with the library, science museum and gymnasium, it constituted the "four major buildings" in the early days of Tsinghua University

. The auditorium is a combination of Greek and Roman architectural styles. When it was built in 1921, it had a building area of 1840 square meters, a volume of 12350 cubic meters, and more than 900 seats. It was the largest auditorium and lecture hall in Chinese universities at that time. Due to the absence of architectural acoustic design, there was an acoustic problem of unclear hearing at the beginning of the construction.

Architectural history

Tsinghua auditorium is a mixed classical colonnade building of Romanesque and Greek style, which is imitated from the library of the University of Virginia. The designers are h. K. Murphy and R. h. Dana, architects of American Maodan company. Taking the typical campus layout of American University in the 19th century as the blueprint, the early Tsinghua campus was planned.

The auditorium is located at the north end of the lawn. The plane of the auditorium is in a cross shape. The south end is the foyer and the north end is the stage. The auditorium adopts a large dome in the style of ancient castle, which belongs to the Byzantine style of ancient Rome. A huge triangular lintel is piled around the auditorium, and the cross shaped sloping roof reflects the highest copper dome. In front of the door there are four white marble Ionian pillars. The stone column is more than two feet high, with about two people embracing each other. There are several longitudinal grooves on the column. A part of round surface is designed on the intersection corner of each groove. The vortex type column head is shaped like a sheep's horn. The overall column design is standard and delicate, full of vitality, which belongs to the Ionian style of ancient Greece. There are three arched large copper doors carved with rich and exquisite relief, which are embedded in the door pocket of white marble. The white porch is in sharp contrast to the red brick wall. In the arched upper part of the door, there are more than a dozen thick and thin steel bars stitching together, which adds vitality to the simplicity and dignity of the auditorium. There is a large window above each main door.

In the early days of Tsinghua University, there were two plaques hanging high in the auditorium: one was "longevity is the same as the country", and the other was "humanity is increasingly new". "Shou Yu Guo Tong" refers to the Republic of China, which was just established in 1911 when Tsinghua University was founded. However, the Republic of China suffered a lot. After 1949, the "Shou Yu Guo Tong" in the auditorium was removed and saved because of the change of circumstances. The plaque of "humanity is getting better and better" has been hung up to now. Every time the auditorium is renovated, the plaque will be repainted. It is often used to praise the era when Tsinghua paid more attention to humanity than technology in its initial stage, and to encourage the students to improve their humanities and social Sciences cultivation.

In the modern history of Tsinghua University, the auditorium witnessed the brewing and victory of many anti imperialist patriotic movements here. Before 1949, Tsinghua auditorium was a gathering place for young students who supported the Communist Party. This group was called "auditorium group"; the other group was "tongfangbu group", which often met in tongfangbu and supported the national government. Over the years, the auditorium has become one of the most glorious buildings. It is regarded by Tsinghua teachers and students as a symbol of their firm, simple and indomitable character.

The auditorium also undertakes the function of enriching the cultural activities of teachers and students. Since its completion, films have been shown on weekends and students are free to buy tickets to watch them. Most of the first films were western films. Around 1918, American homicide films (such as "the robber in black", "the robber with poisonous hands" and so on) and pornographic films became popular, which caused students' dissatisfaction and opposition. The students launched a discussion on "improving Tsinghua films" in Tsinghua weekly, and wrote articles denouncing the bad films "catering to the audience's vulgar tastes", which once stopped the unhealthy trend of showing American films. From 1949 to 1990s, the auditorium still played the role of film screening. The student union was responsible for film selection, and the film group was responsible for film screening, once or twice a week. At the same time, large-scale activities of various colleges and departments are held here, and the auditorium is often selected for major performance activities of universities in Beijing. The lawn directly opposite the auditorium is considered to be the place where the campus folk songs take place. In the 1990s, students dressed in white were playing and singing with guitars. The song has spread out to Tsinghua and become the witness of a new era.

In the 1990s, Zhu Rongji, the then Premier of the State Council, returned to Tsinghua University to give a situation report. He and he Meiying, the Secretary of the Party committee of Tsinghua University, who accompanied him at that time, recalled the past events in the 1940s and said with a pun: at that time, we thought the auditorium was very big, but now it's not big enough.

In 2001, as a part of "early architecture of Tsinghua University", Tsinghua auditorium was listed as a national key cultural relics protection unit, serial number 5-476.

Solving history

Before the centennial celebration, Tsinghua University tried several times to solve the acoustic problem of the auditorium, or failed to get to the essence of the problem, or failed to implement due to the limitation of economic and technical conditions, so the acoustic problem of the auditorium has not been completely solved. In this process, we can also see the academic character of Tsinghua University, which extends from a practical problem to scientific research, and then determines the integration of science and engineering of a discipline.

1. Floor elevation scheme

In 1924, Tsinghua University appointed haiyanshi, a teacher of natural science department, to discuss and solve the acoustic problems of the auditorium. As a mathematics teacher of Tsinghua University, haiyanshi, through general observation and empirical analysis, thinks that the right angles of the four walls inside the auditorium are too sharp, which makes it difficult to convey the sound. Therefore, he initially puts forward some countermeasures: or "raise the rubber floor to blunt its angle"; or "use the cloth curtain to hang the auditorium ceiling to make a circle, then the angle can be increased.". What haiyanshi and others have come up with is only a very rough plan, which fails to get to the essence of architectural acoustics.

2. It is the first time to use architectural acoustics theory to propose solutions

In 1926, Professor Ye Qisun led a research group composed of colleagues in the Department of physics and experimental assistants at the beginning of the founding of the University. They studied the latest development of architectural acoustics abroad, mastered the significance of Sabin's formula under normal circumstances, and initially realized the influence of large space structure, sound production characteristics, sound field distribution, temperature and other factors on reverberation time. At the same time, ye Qisun's group creatively studied the influence of indoor temperature change on reverberation time which was not taken into account by Sabin's formula, and completed the measurement of sound absorption ability of Chinese clothers, which provided important basic parameters for Chinese architectural acoustics at that time.

Using the new architectural acoustics theory, ye Qisun's group analyzed the reasons for the difficulty in listening in the auditorium: the defects in the spatial shape of the vault and the lack of sound-absorbing materials for the interior wall made of lime brick directly caused the long reverberation time. The most suitable reverberation time of Tsinghua auditorium is 1.75 seconds, and it is concluded that 470 square meters of sound absorption capacity (open window) should be added, and the main positions of sound absorption materials are round vault, four curved surfaces and four walls.

It should be said that ye Qisun's group has found out the causes of the acoustic problems in Tsinghua auditorium theoretically and accurately, and put forward the methods to solve the architectural acoustic problems. Although the solution proposed by Ye Qisun group failed to be implemented, their theoretical research made the architectural acoustics research and practice from Tsinghua University into a broader scientific community vision, which laid the foundation for the start of modern architectural acoustics in China.

3. Acoustical reconstruction of Tsinghua University in its 90th Anniversary

Before the 90th anniversary of Tsinghua University in 2001, Tsinghua University organized relevant experts to carry out a simple acoustic transformation of the auditorium. At that time, the school determined that the principle was not to move the building and decoration of the auditorium, so only the original curtain was replaced at the window opening position on the wall. The new curtain is thicker, heavier and has higher sound absorption coefficient than the original curtain. At the same time, the number of loudspeakers of the original sound reinforcement system is added to make the sound reinforcement field of the auditorium more uniform.

The reconstruction improved the acoustics effect of the auditorium to a certain extent, but did not fundamentally solve the problem of long reverberation time.

Tsinghua University

Modern architectural acoustics initiated by Sabin

In 1895, the new Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University was built, but the lecture hall could not be used because of the inaudible sound effect. The president of Harvard University, Charles W. Eliot (1834-1926), asked for help from the Department of physics, and the 27 year old assistant professor, Wallace clement Sabine (1868-1919) was appointed to try to find a logical and quantitative answer to this long-standing problem in science.

Sabin and two lab assistants have come to the conclusion through research and testing

The reverberation time is an important parameter to measure the sound quality of a room. The reverberation time is directly proportional to the volume of the room and inversely proportional to the total absorption of sound by the room interface and furniture

T=0.163V/A

(where t is the reverberation time, in seconds; V is the volume, in cubic meters; a is the total sound absorption, in square meters.)

In addition, Sabin also measured the sound absorption coefficient of some common building materials,

Chinese PinYin : Qing Hua Da Li Tang