Managed by Tianjin municipal government, the major function of the auditorium was to receive guests, hold all sorts of governmental meetings and other performances.

Zhang Lichang, the then Chinese Communist Party Committee Secretary of Tianjin wrote the tablet to commemorate.

For government conferences, meetings or official activities, ‘Tianjin Grand Auditorium’ would be adopted as the name.

In March 2009, the Tianjin Municipal Government initiated a public bidding for the cultural center's architectural design plan.

For the grand theatre, four plans submitted by well-known architects such as Rem Koolhaas and Meinhard von Gerkan were selected into the second round.

The plan from Gerkan, Marg and Partners and East China Architectural Design & Research Institute Co., Ltd. won the bidding at last.

19 concerts including performances from the violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, Gidon Kremer, Chamber Music team of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Emerson String Quartet, Chinese pianist Chen Sa, Erhu player Yu Hongmei, Guqin player Wu Na and more than one hundred artists were staged in the theatre.

The production team of Transformers: Age of Extinction also shot the film in the Tianjin Grand Theatre.

Architect Meinhard von Gerkan said that the Chinese philosophical concepts of ‘Heaven’ and ‘Earth’ were adopted in the design.

As the theme building of the new Tianjin Cultural center, the grand theatre's dish-shaped roof echoes with the museum's, symbolizing the concepts of ‘Heaven’ and ‘Earth’ together.

Besides, there is a 1,200-meter street full of stores selling works of art linking the four different parts inside the grand theatre.

Thus, as the largest convention center of Tianjin, the grand theatre was completely operated by the municipal government in the past.

When the new grand theatre was established in the cultural center, the 17th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was also held in Beijing.

Beijing Propel Culture & Media Co., Ltd acquired the power for operation of the theatre and earned the support from the municipal government.

[11] Besides, the company got the permission to use the venue (5,000 m2) under the theatre's 6-meter-high step to develop creative industry as a subsidy for the operational cost.

According to the contract signed by the municipal government and the company, Propel Culture & Media Co., Ltd is supposed to accomplish 300 performances every year.

For example, Puccini's Tosca, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin carried out by Stanislavski Russian Theatre, Béla Bartók’s Bluebeard's Castle, Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto, Il trovatore, Aida performed by Hungarian State Opera House, Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro by Deutsche Oper am Rhein, and La traviata of Giuseppe Verdi.

Activities such as academic forums, international chamber music festivals, and ‘art education and community outreach’ are frequently held in Tianjin.

According to the comments of experts, the opera house is unanimously judged as the best in China, by no means inferior to the National Centre for the Performing Arts.

In April 2012, the then artistic director and chief conductor of Zurich Chamber Orchestra Tang Muhai commented ‘the facilities of the Tianjin Grand Theatre are among the bests in the world…the sound effects are fabulous.’[15] In April 2013, a cold wave swept across Tianjin and temperature dropped immediately.

But this effort proved to be futile as the competent department asserted that the central heating system could satisfy the theatre's needs without any problem.

The Tianjin Grand Theatre adjoins You Yi Road, Le Yuan Avenue and many other high streets of the city.

Besides, there are other landmarks and scenic resorts around the theatre, such as the Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Center and the Five Great Avenues tourist area.

The spouts and water jets are accompanied with the classical music such as Butterfly Lovers' Violin Concerto and Con te partirò.