Double Withdrawal: Broadcasting National Form and Coding the Power of the "Big Roof" in Chinese Socialist Monumental Architecture

The subject of the study is the evolutionary trajectory of the architectural symbol of the "big roof" in Chinese socialist monumental architecture of the mid-20th century. The object of research is the dynamic interaction between architectural form, material productive forces, and state power in the process of ideological spatial production. The author examines in detail aspects of the topic such as the mechanism of semiotic translation constructed by Liang Sicheng through the theory of "grammar-lexicon" and "translatability of architecture," the violent hijacking of the right to encode space by the state apparatus during the political critique of 1955, as well as subsequent transformations of the symbol in key monumental buildings – the Palace of Nationalities (1959) and the memorial tower "2–7" in Zhengzhou (1971). Special attention is given to the process of dialectical "sublation" (Aufhebung), through which the "big roof" is progressively detached from its structural essence, transformed into a "floating signifier," and recoded by state power. The methodological foundation of the study is a synthesis of Marxist philosophy of culture, Lefebvre's concept of "production of space," Althusser's theory of ideological apparatuses, Hegelian-Marxist dialectics of "sublation," Lotman's semiotic teaching on the boundaries of the "semiosphere," as well as the typological model of "Culture Two" by Paperny, which reveals the vertically hierarchical and statically monumental organization of space. The scientific novelty lies in the application of a synthetic framework (Marxism, Lotman's semiotics, the "Culture Two" model) to the analysis of the "big roof" as a double dialectical sublation. For the first time, it is shown that the first sublation (Palace of Nationalities, 1959) creates a representative space of state orthodoxy through elitist discipline and the vertical order of "Culture Two"; the second (tower "2–7," 1971) constitutes an instrumentalized return, where memoriality displaces architectonics. It has been established that the latter, aesthetically vulnerable sublation objectively eliminated class taboos from national symbols, legitimizing traditional form in a radical political context, while simultaneously implementing a technical separation of form and structure through modern materials. Conclusion: architectural form does not possess a fixed class affiliation, serving as a "floating signifier" that can be recoded by power. The legacy of Liang Sicheng, continually reinterpreted, reveals the tragic spiral of the intelligentsia's fate and the resilience of local cultural identity.