On a rainy October morning, fog sits low over the Andes foothills. The Bahá’í Temple of South America, the bahá’í temple santiago, looks half-swallowed, its outline softened by cloud that hides the city below. For Siamak Hariri, the Canadian architect who designed it, the weather fits a return that comes with ten years of hindsight.
“Architecture is putting form to aspiration,” Hariri says when we meet ahead of the temple’s 10th anniversary. “What we had here was a very high aspiration.”
A Global Vision for the bahá’í temple santiago
The bahá’í temple santiago commission was part of a larger plan. The Universal House of Justice, the international governing body of the Bahá’í faith, wanted a temple on every continent. Santiago was the last in that series. The faith was founded in 1863 and teaches the unity of humanity and the essential worth of all religions.
Hariri, who is himself a Bahá’í, compares the project to the first churches of early Christianity. “In a way, what we are doing is like making the first churches in the early days of Christianity,” he says. “And a new faith demands a new expression.”
The design for the bahá’í temple santiago came out of an international competition that drew 185 entries. Nine twisting wings rise around a central oculus like petals. They are clad in translucent cast glass on the outside and Portuguese marble on the inside. Construction took 13 years.
Chile‘s appetite for bold, sculptural architecture reaches well beyond the capital, and a coastal house shows it clearly. Sculptural Coastal Retreat Overlooking Chile’s Tunquén Cliffs is worth a look for its dramatic siting above the sea.
Over the past decade, the project has won awards for Hariri Pontarini Architects, the Toronto firm of 120 people where Hariri, 68, is a founding partner. Honours include the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada‘s International Prize and two awards from the American Institute of Architects.
“This project has been life-changing, and it gave us a new sense of confidence,” Hariri says as we walk from the jacaranda-lined reception area toward the temple grounds. He wears a mauve sweater and a camel-coloured scarf. He speaks slowly and deliberately about how buildings can point beyond the physical. The path itself, he says, was designed as a buffer where a visitor shifts from city noise to a quieter mood.
Few of Hariri’s projects sit this far from home, and the bahá’í temple santiago remains his most distant major work. Most of his work is in Canada, including the Art Gallery of Ontario and the University of Toronto. He is now reworking the Royal Ontario Museum and expanding the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. Across these different jobs, his main concerns remain the same: how light and materials shape a room, and how a room makes people feel.
Hariri calls the temple a crystal set against the mountains. Glass and marble give the building what he describes as “a little kiss of light.” Bahá’í belief holds that a person’s inner being glows when prayers are answered, and Hariri tries to echo that with clear daylight and a warm glow after dark.
The faith also reveres the number nine, which stands for unity and perfection. The building’s metal frame carries nine wings made from thousands of individually engineered steel components. Each wing angles toward the oculus, giving the interior a strong pull upward. Elastomeric seismic isolators beneath the structure absorb the shocks of Chile’s frequent earthquakes.
“This building taught us a lot about how to fall backward into a design process, rather than to do a design that comes straight from the head,” Hariri recalls, as a condor glides across the sky above the western ridge of the Andes. “The process really opened up this sense of adventure.”
At 30 metres tall, the temple is visible from much of Santiago, a city of 7 million people. Inside, the space feels intimate rather than vast. Patinaed bronze fixtures and walnut floors warm the hushed interior. Ground-level windows frame gardens by Chilean landscape architect Juan Grimm, planted with native drought-resistant species, wave-shaped ponds and paths that fade toward the mountains.
Outside, a 65-metre reflecting pool holds the temple upside down in its emerald water. Hariri stops to chat with tour groups from Australia and Brazil and poses for photos with the Brazilian visitors.
Hariri sees a clear line from the temple architecture to his newer work, including the Tom Patterson Theatre in Stratford, Ontario. He points to a sharper eye for detail, a more tactile use of materials and a softer touch overall. “We’re not afraid of curves anymore,” he says with a laugh. He credits most of his lessons to beauty, which he says comes from landscape, light, proportion and craft working together to stir an emotional response.
Temple director Verónica Oré says that emotional pull is what sets the bahá’í temple santiago apart. Visitors often cannot explain what happens to them inside. “We often see people arrive, look at the space and cry,” she says. “I don’t pretend to understand these mysteries, but I perceive that something is happening in their hearts.”
For Bahá’ís, the temple remains a place to reconnect with their spiritual nature. Its reach now extends well beyond the faith. Up to 22,000 people visit each weekend, although the interior holds only 600 at a time. In July this year, the temple welcomed its three-millionth visitor. TripAdvisor now ranks it among the top 20 things to do in Santiago, and tour vans arrive at all hours.
The grounds also host yoga and art classes, community gatherings and quiet moments on the paths for those who want to read or simply sit.
Visitors drawn to the temple’s gardens may also enjoy how another Chilean house meets its surroundings. Chile’s Coastal Home Blending Brutalism with Landscape shows how heavy concrete can sit comfortably within nature.
“I wanted this to become one of the city’s living rooms, but nobody imagined we’d have three million visitors,” Hariri says, clearly moved by the response. “I feel so grateful that I get to witness this.”
Back below the temple, Hariri asks whether I know the fable of the old man and the fig tree. An elderly man kneels in the dirt planting saplings that will take years to bear fruit. A younger man asks why he bothers, since he will never eat their figs. The old man replies that he ate figs planted by others, and now he plants for those who come after.
Hariri seems to see himself in that old man. Ten years on, he is looking back at a building that has outgrown its designer’s expectations. “You know, I thought this might become a tourist thing, but it’s so much more than that,” he says, spreading his arms as he reflects on his return to Chile. “Now, it feels like it’s the people’s temple.”
Frequently asked questions
Who designed the Bahá’í Temple of South America in Santiago?
Siamak Hariri, a Canadian architect and founding partner of Hariri Pontarini Architects in Toronto, designed the Bahá’í Temple of South America in Santiago. He is himself a Bahá’í.
How long did it take to build the Bahá’í Temple in Santiago?
Construction of the Bahá’í Temple in Santiago took 13 years. The temple marked its 10th anniversary at the time the article was written.
Why does the Bahá’í Temple in Santiago have nine wings?
The Bahá’í faith reveres the number nine, which stands for unity and perfection. The temple’s metal frame therefore carries nine wings that each angle toward the central oculus.
How tall is the Bahá’í Temple of South America?
The temple is 30 metres tall and is visible from much of Santiago, a city of 7 million people.
More in
Architecture
All Architecture
