Nines - Bahá'í Temple of Light
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I would have expected some connection for the nine-way symmetry, but although Siamak Hariri talks about the importance of symmetry generally I found no hint in the material of what 'nine' might signify. The only thing that comes to mind is from Tolkien:
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
which is clearly not it. (I have looked into this, see below.)
The Bahá'í Temple for South America, Mashriqu'l-Adhkar, Santiago, Chile
Siamak Hariri & David Pontarini of Hariri Pontarini Architects (Justin Ford, Michael Boxer, Chris Andrews, Jaegap Chung, Mehrdad Tavakkolian, Adriana Balen, Naomi Kriss, George Simionopoulos, Tiago Masrour).
The Bahá'í link contains links to other major sites on the subject.
Worth listening to: Audio Presentation (.mp3) from Architecture Radio.
All of the images above are (obviously, since it is not built yet) either photographs of physical models or computer-generated. I remember some comments by Douglas Cardinal around designing the Museum of Man in Hull, Quebec, Canada (aka Museum of Civilization in correctitude-speech) where he used what was cutting edge software at the time, I think it was a prototype Intergraph system; that was in 1987-1989. The curves in the Museum are mostly in plan whereas the Temple is curved all over. These guys used Autodesk Maya for conceptual modelling, which they praised, and IBM Catia for design/development which they would apparently rather have not used. He says, "We tried desperately NOT to use Catia." I can dig it. They noted that a primary difficulty was non-existent interfaces between software products.
It is lovely, more than lovely. My only concern at the minute is that (if you look at the last photograph above) the result may not be well faired. This will be determined by the size of the individual tiles or patches used to build it, and this will in turn be determined to a degree by the software used to catalogue and manage it. A question of two related scales.
The Christ statue, Cristo Redentor, on Corcovado in Rio de Janeiro successfully dealt with a comparable issue. The statue is covered in soapstone tiles which are replaced individually as the surface is degraded by air-pollution. The relative scales used in Brasil were well-chosen. Even up-close the effect is perfectly faired and not disconcerting.
From the sublime to the ridiculous maybe ... but anyone who has seen an Orange-Julep roadside stand knows that up-close the shape is not well faired and 'tacky'.
Comparisons with Catedral de São Sebastião in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil; AND Gaudi's La Familia in Barcelona, Spain.
Doubly-curved surfaces bring on metaphors of female flesh, no question. Interesting to me that in his talk the reference was to inviting their mothers to an early design review, along with engineers, client representatives, and so forth. I found myself thinking about feminist correctitude - probably quite unjustified.
Symbology of Nines
The official Bahá'í stories are: 1 - nine years between the declaration of the Báb in Shiraz (1844) and Bahá'u'lláh's enlightenment in Teheran (1853, this date is not particularly stressed in the potted Bahá'í histories I saw); and 2 - nine, as the highest single-digit number, symbolizes completeness. It is often depicted with a circle inside the star, which follows through on the completeness theme.
Bahá'ís I spoke to about it thought it had something to do with Bahá'í comprising the nine great religions of the world. I did find a diagram of prophets: Moses (1330 BC), Krishna (900 BC), Zoroaster (600 BC), Budda (500 BC), Christ (1), Mohammed (632), Báb (1844), and Bahá'u'lláh (1863). This last date is interesting because it is 19 years from the Báb, and nineteen is big in Bahá'í - makes me wonder if the 9 year thing is just bad subtraction?
Nevermind the (it seems to me) weak basis, Bahá'í temples are built on nines, and the nine-pointed star is a standard symbol of the faith.
In the process I came across the Lotus Temple in Delhi, some resonances with the Temple of Light. And one approach to the problem of fairing surfaces - draw lines on it! Nevermind that a lotus normally has 6 petals.
Tags: Bahá'í, Bahai, Temple, Chile, Santiago, Architecture, Correctitude.
I would have expected some connection for the nine-way symmetry, but although Siamak Hariri talks about the importance of symmetry generally I found no hint in the material of what 'nine' might signify. The only thing that comes to mind is from Tolkien:
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
which is clearly not it. (I have looked into this, see below.)
The Bahá'í Temple for South America, Mashriqu'l-Adhkar, Santiago, Chile
Siamak Hariri & David Pontarini of Hariri Pontarini Architects (Justin Ford, Michael Boxer, Chris Andrews, Jaegap Chung, Mehrdad Tavakkolian, Adriana Balen, Naomi Kriss, George Simionopoulos, Tiago Masrour).
The Bahá'í link contains links to other major sites on the subject.
Worth listening to: Audio Presentation (.mp3) from Architecture Radio.
All of the images above are (obviously, since it is not built yet) either photographs of physical models or computer-generated. I remember some comments by Douglas Cardinal around designing the Museum of Man in Hull, Quebec, Canada (aka Museum of Civilization in correctitude-speech) where he used what was cutting edge software at the time, I think it was a prototype Intergraph system; that was in 1987-1989. The curves in the Museum are mostly in plan whereas the Temple is curved all over. These guys used Autodesk Maya for conceptual modelling, which they praised, and IBM Catia for design/development which they would apparently rather have not used. He says, "We tried desperately NOT to use Catia." I can dig it. They noted that a primary difficulty was non-existent interfaces between software products.
It is lovely, more than lovely. My only concern at the minute is that (if you look at the last photograph above) the result may not be well faired. This will be determined by the size of the individual tiles or patches used to build it, and this will in turn be determined to a degree by the software used to catalogue and manage it. A question of two related scales.
The Christ statue, Cristo Redentor, on Corcovado in Rio de Janeiro successfully dealt with a comparable issue. The statue is covered in soapstone tiles which are replaced individually as the surface is degraded by air-pollution. The relative scales used in Brasil were well-chosen. Even up-close the effect is perfectly faired and not disconcerting.
From the sublime to the ridiculous maybe ... but anyone who has seen an Orange-Julep roadside stand knows that up-close the shape is not well faired and 'tacky'.
Comparisons with Catedral de São Sebastião in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil; AND Gaudi's La Familia in Barcelona, Spain.Doubly-curved surfaces bring on metaphors of female flesh, no question. Interesting to me that in his talk the reference was to inviting their mothers to an early design review, along with engineers, client representatives, and so forth. I found myself thinking about feminist correctitude - probably quite unjustified.
Symbology of Nines
The official Bahá'í stories are: 1 - nine years between the declaration of the Báb in Shiraz (1844) and Bahá'u'lláh's enlightenment in Teheran (1853, this date is not particularly stressed in the potted Bahá'í histories I saw); and 2 - nine, as the highest single-digit number, symbolizes completeness. It is often depicted with a circle inside the star, which follows through on the completeness theme.
Bahá'ís I spoke to about it thought it had something to do with Bahá'í comprising the nine great religions of the world. I did find a diagram of prophets: Moses (1330 BC), Krishna (900 BC), Zoroaster (600 BC), Budda (500 BC), Christ (1), Mohammed (632), Báb (1844), and Bahá'u'lláh (1863). This last date is interesting because it is 19 years from the Báb, and nineteen is big in Bahá'í - makes me wonder if the 9 year thing is just bad subtraction?Nevermind the (it seems to me) weak basis, Bahá'í temples are built on nines, and the nine-pointed star is a standard symbol of the faith.
In the process I came across the Lotus Temple in Delhi, some resonances with the Temple of Light. And one approach to the problem of fairing surfaces - draw lines on it! Nevermind that a lotus normally has 6 petals.
Tags: Bahá'í, Bahai, Temple, Chile, Santiago, Architecture, Correctitude.
How wonderful that in this war torn world a group of men have created something of beauty , a place to which all can come and worship restore their souls Thanks so much for posting the pictures. I LOVED looking at them all