Award

by TANNER MORTON RAIC Communications Assistant DECEMBER 2019 | 5 PERSPECTIVE D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 9 | V O L U M E 3 3 | N U M B E R 6 PUBLISHER Dan Chapman dchapman @ canadawide.com 604.473.0316 EDITOR Natalie Bruckner nbruckner @ canadawide.com ART DIRECTOR Scott Laurie slaurie @ canadawide.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Robin Brunet Laurie Jones Stacey McLachlan Laura Walker ACCOUNT MANAGER Alexander Sugden asugden @ canadawide.com PRODUCTION MANAGER Elaina Kohlhauser ekohlhauser @ canadawide.com SUBSCRIPTION INQUIRIES 604.299.2116 1.800.663.0518 subscriptions@canadawide.com CHAIRMAN, CEO Peter Legge, obc, lld. 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The publishers cannot be held responsible for unsolicited manuscripts and photographs. T he Bahá'í Temple of South America in Santiago, Chile, had a unique design problem to overcome – it couldn't look like a typical church, synagogue, or mosque, but had to invoke the same spiritual feeling in visitors. "It needs to be welcoming for people of all faiths, or no faith," says architect Siamak Hariri, a founding partner of the Toronto firm Hariri Pontarini Architects. "What we aspire for is beauty, sensuousness, and atmosphere." Invoking the divine, he adds, is a "deep part of the human condi- tion. It's really when you do your best work." The Bahá'í Temple of South America – an extraordinary struc- ture, which took 14 years to design and build – was named the 2019 recipient of the $100,000 RAIC International Prize at an awards cer- emony and gala in Toronto on October 25. The prize celebrates a single work of architecture that is judged to be transformative within its societal context and expressive of the humanistic values of justice, respect, equality, and inclusiveness. Since opening in 2016, the Bahá'í Temple has welcomed over 1.4 million visitors from around the world. The temple holds an impor- tant place in the Chilean community, hosting community clubs, youth outreach programs, and children's activities in partnership with public schools. The interior spaces of the temple are designed to invite people to come together and sit in quiet contemplation. The jury said: "The result is timeless and inspiring, a building that uses a language of space and light, form and materials, to express an interpretation of Bahá'í philosophy and teaching that becomes uni- versally accessible as a shared spiritual and emotional experience." When Hariri discusses the long journey that it took to bring the Bahá'í Temple to life, it's equal parts sermon, architectural design presentation, and philosophy lecture. Located at the edge of the Andes, the structure was built to withstand a rugged climate and an earthquake zone. Its realization involved hundreds of local volunteers and a global effort, includ- ing fabrication in Canada and Germany, marble from a Portuguese quarry, and Chilean tradespeople. The construction budget was CAD $36 million. "The project had a will of its own," is a refrain that Hariri returns to as he details the challenges encountered and overcome over the 14 years. Core tenets of the Bahá'í faith are validation and unification – unifying different concepts of god and the theological teachings from religious practices around the world. With unity as a guiding principle, Hariri Pontarini Architects had to find a design that conveyed the spirituality of their client's vision, while avoiding the established design aesthetics of other buildings of worship. Part of the design breakthrough came from a desire to wed con- cepts of movement and stillness, counterpoints to each other, into one structure. When Hariri adopted these abstracts into a physical form, a circular structure was the best expression of what he had in mind. The temple is elegant in its form, with nine sections reminiscent of petals or wings sprouting from the ground and weaving upwards into a central oculus. These wings are made of an outer layer of cast-glass panels and an interior layer of translucent marble. The invention of this new material – cast-glass cladding – took four years of experimentation and collaboration with a Canadian glass artisan. "During the day, the striking form is animated by the variations of light and shade on the building's softly turning surfaces," said the jury. "At night, it stands like a lantern, softly lit from within." Each panel of stone was worked to coax an impression of soft- ness from a material that often personifies rigidity. The effect was drawn out from the stone by gradually smoothing it down, with care to make sure the natural texture wasn't lost for a glossy finish. There's an "ineffable quality" to the temple that needs to be vis- ited to be experienced, says Hariri. The philosophy of universality extends beyond the temple to the surrounding landscaped environment. The flowing design of the gardens is, for Hariri, a natural extension of the same princi- ples used in the construction of the temple. "There is an inhale and exhale to the temple," he says. The architects' mandate was for the temple to have a 400-year design-life and a tiny carbon footprint, "less than a bungalow," according to Hariri. This was achieved by utilizing local materials and sustainable sources, along with a design that does away with the need for central heating and cooling systems. The Bahá'í Temple of South America was selected by the six-member jury following site visits to each of the three short- listed projects. The other two finalists were: Edificio E, Lecture Building, University of Piura in Piura, Peru by Barclay & Crousse, of Lima, Peru; and Thread: Artists' Residency and Cultural Center in Sinthian, Senegal by Toshiko Mori Architect, of New York, U.S. This third cycle of the biennial prize received submissions from 12 countries across six continents. Hariri Pontarini Architects are the first Canadians to win the prize which was established in 2013 by Canadian architect Raymond Moriyama, along with the RAIC and the RAIC Foundation. It was originally called the Moriyama RAIC International Prize. The prize is open to all architects, irrespective of nationality and location, for a building anywhere in the world. Hariri Pontarini Architects offered this statement to sum up the philosophy of the Bahá'í Temple of South America. "At the heart of this building there is a belief and an aspiration: that even now, in the fractured 21st- century, we can respond to a human yearning to come together, to connect to one another, and to something that moves the spirit." A For more information, visit internationalprize.raic.org Celebrating Humanism In Architecture

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