Built by public subscription from Guangzhou residents and overseas Chinese communities and completed in 1931, the hall commemorates Sun Yat-sen and stands on the site of the presidential office of his Guangzhou government. The architect Lu Yanzhi combined a Chinese palace idiom, with an octagonal plan, blue-glazed tile roofs and painted timber detailing, with a steel truss that spans the auditorium without internal columns, seating roughly 3,000. The building still functions as a working theatre and civic venue alongside exhibition rooms covering Sun’s life and the hall’s construction. A bronze statue of Sun stands before the entrance, and the grounds contain mature banyans and kapok trees. Admission is ticketed, and the metro station of the same name is adjacent.