Undoubtedly, Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute is considered to be the most magnificent university in Kyiv. On the premises of its buildings, you feel as if you put your hand to the discoveries and studies that were carried out by great scholars. At once you are eager to see bygone days, to become the one of the first diligent students having studied here.
On the 19th of September 2008 the doors of the Great Physical Auditorium opened and enabled us to contemplate the beauty of the past. At this particular day it was opened after being renovated and modernized.
V.V. Tatarchuk the head of history department in State Polytechnic Museum at NTUU KPI introduced us the history of the Great Physical Auditorium. His story was accompanied by the old photos, drawings and film fragments.
The auditorium and its hall were constructed according to the project of V.O. Osmak who was a teacher at those times and later the Professor of KPI. Its length is 20.7 m, the width is 18.7 m, which makes up 387 sq. m. at an altitude of 13.4 m between the floor near the lecture table and the ceiling.
At the time of its creation, the Great Physical Auditorium surpassed the size of such audiences of many foreign higher technical educational institutions, in particular, Paris École Polytechnique and Berlin-Charlottenburg Higher Technical School. The architecture of the GPA combines beauty and sophistication with usual asceticism of educational institution. The wooden ceiling of the audience is painted and decorated. Plaster walls are textured and decorated with modeling here and there.
The Great Physical Auditorium was noted for being convenient for both teachers and students. The presence of several entrances and the optimal location of passageways helped avoid pushing. At that time the lecture table was equipped with water and gas supply, even a special hole for experiments with mercury.
Being designed as the amphitheater, the Great Physical gives the opportunity to listeners (400-500 places) to hear and see everything. Daylight was not only lateral, but also upper - through the windows in the ceiling - so carefully designed the GPA was. In case the lecturer was going to use the projector, the upper windows had to be dragged with drapes. To have it done, a peculiar device with rails and metal carts that could be turned on with the help of electricity was created. In case it malfunctioned, there was a possibility to do it manually, but it was necessary to send someone to the attic.
So far, a special double board has been preserved in the audience. Drawing a rope, one of its halves can be raised, while lowering another. It comes in handy when the lecturer needs to write several complex mathematical formulas that do not fit on the same board.
The wall opposite to the audience is lined with the busts of Galileo (left), Newton (right), and the left side - Volta, Galvani, Leibniz, Faraday, Helmholtz, Gauβ. The names of following physicists Meyer, Joule, Reno, Jung, Fresnel, Kirchhoff, Bunsen, Ampere, Ohm, Maxwell, Hertz, Pascal, Cavendish, Coulomb, and Watt are grouped above them and B.S. Jacobi, M.V Lomonosov, E.H. Lenz – on the main wall.
In times of World War II the Auditorium as well as all the other KPI buildings was severely damaged. It was partially renovated after, but 8 great busts mentioned above didn’t adorn the walls any more.
Although the beauty of those busts was ruined, the renovated ones embellish the Great Physical Auditorium now. The sculptor is the member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine. Undoubtedly, he did his bit and increased its majesty. Not only that, GPA was completed with an electronic reference and information complex and table of SI units.
Having finished with the overlook on the history of the GFA, the V.V. Tatarchuk began the lecture. No wonder, the first lecture to be given in the renovated Great Physical Auditorium was devoted to the latest project in the history of physics - the Big Collider, which is so widely known. The listeners were said to receive the information firsthand. The first lecturer was given by the professor of the department of the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine - Doctor of Physics and Mathematics G. M. Zinoviev - the head of the Ukrainian group-participant of the project, by the way, a graduate of the KPI.
Every day opens up in the university something new. Now from the walls of the Great Physical Auditorium distinguished world-known scholars will be keeping their eyes the students and teachers, reminding us that the future is bright and unique, with new researches and big discoveries, some of which, surely, will belong to the graduates of the KPI.