The first time I visited the Baha’i Temple, about ten years ago, I said “Wow! This building is so symmetrical” and then didn’t think much of it afterwords.
I’d like to believe that my architectural frame of reference is more sophisticated these days, so I made another visit to the temple. This time my reaction was “Wow! This building is so symmetrical! and “Oh man they have great public bathrooms!”
The Baha’i Temple is in Wilmette, IL, a short train ride North of Chicago. You can visit any day of the week for free (and they don’t take any donations from people outside the faith.) A visitor center with the aforementioned excellent bathrooms is at the foot of the temple.
This is one of eight Baha’i Temples in the world and the only one in North American so it’s a bit of a tourist attraction. Designed by Canadian architect Louis Bourgeois, the temple took 32 years to complete, beginning in 1921, with construction halted during the Great Depression.
Nine is a sacred number in the Baha’i faith and the temple design reflect the number nine, well, everywhere. The building has nine sides and nine doors and is surrounded by nine gardens (you haven’t forgotten what I said about the symmetry, have you?)
One of the nine gardens with—wait for it now—nine fountains.
The building is constructed on a steel frame covered with white tracery made of concrete mixed with ground quartz.
The design elements are eclectic with Gothic and Moorish bits, as well as ornamental details using symbols from several world religions.
The, ahem, nine point star is in heavy rotation on the temple’s façade as well as in the interior (no photos allowed inside though).
After hanging out around the temple for a while I got this feeling, the building design reminded me of….something. I thought at first it was the Louis Sullivan style of decoration, well known in Chicago architecture. (See above for a detail of his Carson, Pirie, Scott building). Though, on consideration, it wasn’t the Louis Sullivan style I was thinking of. What the heck was this Baha’i temple reminding me of?
Finally, I got it—-it was the Disney Store!
On the left is one of the nine ground level pillars of the Baha’i temple. On the right is the pillar from the store front of the flagship Disney Store on Michigan Avenue in Chicago.
In the first photo you can see ornamental elements from the temple, with the star of David and a swastika (don’t freak out—-this is referencing the ancient Hindu symbol, not the swastika co-opted by the Third Reich). In the second is another example from the Disney Store. (I can’t swear to it, but somewhere in the Disney Store façade Mickey Mouse must be holding a nine point star.)
The Baha’i religion is the most sensible sounding, inoffensive and humanist centered faith I’ve ever encountered. Here are some of the core principles of the Baha’i, as listed in a flyer I took from the visitor center:
- Oneness of humanity and dignity of every human being
- Freedom from prejudice
- Equality of women and men
- Harmony of faith, reason and science
The people I know who practice Baha’i are as sincere and lovely as the principles of their religion would suggest. I really, really want to throw myself in admiration at the foot of one of the nine symmetrical staircases and say “This is it! The most perfect religion ever!” And yet, the art historian and lover of world culture in me just says, “Meh, Disney religion.” It’s like reading a novel where everyone is nice and gets along, and there’s no crisis of character or tragic circumstances. That’s a great life, but a deadly boring book. What’s a religion without insecure gods, incestuous origin stories, contradictory and antiquated law and bloodthirsty art? Something tells me that if such an admirable religion exists, it would build a temple in honor of dignity, equality, symmetry and the number nine.
How we got to Wilmette: train.
Where we slept: at home. Price: mortgage, assessments and utilities. Recommended: highly.
Picnic at the Cathedral 
Nine?
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High five Kurt!
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We visited the Bahai this weekend too 🙂 Lovely pictures.
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Thank you nikirath—I hope you had time for lots of interesting architecture in the Chicago area!
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It reminds me of the Taj Mahal. And there is at least one other sensible/sounding, inoffensive, humanist religion in the USA: Unitarian Universalism
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Oh yes of course—shout out to my Unitarian Universalism friends!
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I used to drive by this every day on my way to work and thought it was so beautiful! I never had the chance to see it up close though so I loved all your photos! Didn’t know how good their bathrooms were – a good thing to remember, I think!
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I’m pretty sure the secret to life is knowing where all the good public bathrooms are. 🙂
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I am going to visit Chicago for the first time in October, I will add this to my list of places I want to visit!
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Great, if you need any more Chicago tips please let me know. picnicatthecathedral@gmail.com
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The BAHA’I temple at Delhi is shaped in the form of a lotus with 27 petals in 3 layers (NINE * 3). It also has nine doors, gardens and ponds 🙂
So I guess all of these Baha’i temples have similar features that are connected with number 9
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9 time 3: love it! Have you been inside the Delhi temple Sreejith?
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Looks so serene.I had been to the Baha’i temple in Delhi.It is popularly known as the Lotus Temple.A beautiful structure and surroundings.
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I just met someone earlier this week who just returned from being a volunteer at the Baha’i center in Israel. She said there are lots of pilgrims. I wonder if it’s the same in Delhi?
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I saw a lot of tourists there.It has become a must see place in Delhi.Volunteers were seen over there also.Since they don’t have a specific dress code I couldn’t make out the pilgrims or followers.
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Been to the Bahai temple in Haifa. They do have a few traits found in other religions like “we’re the most correct” and “it all points to us”, plus in early Bahai history there was actually some violence over successors etc. That said I did think their Haifa building was quite beautiful and tastefully done, and they were pleasant enough.
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I’m waiting for a religion to come along whose motto is “Meh, what do we know? Maybe we’re wrong about this whole thing”. That will be the religion I join.
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The Quakers are a bit like that I think. Buddhism sometimes.
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I grew up in Evanston not far from the Bahai temple, and we always used to take visitors there because it was the closest tourist attraction to our house. But there was no such thing as a Disney Store in those days, so I can’t compare. I know a couple of Bahai adherents here in Frankfurt, and I have the impression that Bahai is similar to the Cao Dai religion in Vietnam.
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This is the first I’ve heard of Cao Dai so I googled it—it looks quite colorful. I hope you can visit Evanston again some day. It is an interesting city, with the University of course, but lots of weird stuff like a million oriental rug stores.
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In the 1960s I had the privilege of living for several months with an elderly Cao Dai couple in Vietnam, so I learned a bit about their religion. https://operasandcycling.com/the-cao-dai-eye-in-tan-ba/
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I am a Bahá’í from Brazil and I was researching about architecture and illumination works on the internet, found your website and started to cry when I read your article about the Chicago Bahá’í Temple!
Lovely words! Loved your page, and I will share it with everyone I know!
Keep the wonderful work!
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Thanks, fellow architecture and illumination fan!
Those gardens at the temple are just starting to bloom with lovely spring flowers. Wishing you a beautiful and flower-filled spring in Brazil.
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I came to your wordpress for the Louis Sullivan post (touching, the line that said something like “thanks for giving me what I didn’t know I needed” resonates strongly with me as I explore more of his work recently.)
Then noticed this post – which interested me as a Baha’i. Must say it saddened me a good bit. It’s one thing when people dislike the religion — hey, who doesn’t have a good suspicion of religion? — and I get on just fine. But ouch, to consider the temple like a disney store… :O. That cuts a bit deeper! haha
I hope my jest (half serious as of course it is) is clear. I certainly wouldn’t expect you to modulate posts based on a religious follower’s internal perspective.
But it did leave me wanting to point out — there’s a reason you intially thought Sullivan. Louis Bourgeois, the temple architect, worked with Sullivan in the 1890s. This also relates to one of the few principles of Baha’i temple architecture (you certainly picked up on the main two — symmetry and cycles of 9). Temples are supposed to integrate aesthetically with the local culture.
I find it quite a treasure that this integration, in the Chicago temple’s case, is more than skin deep and ties with a world-historical architectural current — Bourgeois having worked with Sullivan.
I certainly get the reticence about the faith’s idealism and you might say the architecture reflects that. But to me the temple’s amazing simplicity (despite all the ornamentation, somehow), draws out a less immediate side of the faith — a rather intense sober streak that runs against the hyper-optimism of our market-driven, art crushing world. The latter gets less coverage from over-eager sharers of the faith, understandably, but couples with the idealism much like the superb ornamentation meets with real austerity on the temple.
To me the temple is quite unique this way. The architectural world seems to have doven into this austerity with wonderful result. But the ethic seems to have become discipline against ornament. The temple, to me, stands as a rare reminder that, done well, ornamentation and simple repose aren’t mutually exclusive.
Disney, maybe… Idealism, certainly. But that’s only half the story!
Anyways, having defended a favorite work of art, I should once again thank you for the posts. They’re great!
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Thanks for stopping by and for your comments, Ney-j Grant—it is interesting to hear from your perspective. I do love referential architecture and there are a lot of things about this temple that seem like a classic grand mosque or even a big Orthodox cathedral (with that big dome, and some of the symmetry too). The dramatic positioning is like those Gothic cathedrals, but then why the stubby bits on the ends of the pillars that ruin the lines up to the sky?
I didn’t know that Bourgeois studied with Sullivan, and I can see how their ornamentation might be related. With Sullivan the ornamentation feels idiosyncratic and hyper personal which is part of the appeal to me and I don’t feel it here, which is where the Disney sensation comes from. I admit to having a pretty grumpy day when I wrote the post (something upsetting had just happened) but I still haven’t come around to the building aesthetically, though of course I’m glad it is there and maybe there be a day when I suddenly dig it.
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Aha, it is letting me respond! (though still not like, which I assure you I would xD. I’ve logged in through facebook which appears limited.)
I understand, and can respect, that your lack of appreciation for the ornamentation is straightforwardly aesthetic in nature.
As a stubborn admirer I’ll just point out that the medium was new for the time, and accounts for some of its wider, more gestural, forms. Compared, at least, to the terra cotta of Sullivan I am relatively familiar with.
There’s a neat article on this – explores the reasons Bourgious chose this medium, to let him play with the temple’s relationship to light in a radically new way. The Chile temple extends this relationship in an even newer direction, using a rare transluscent stone (though I am not as big a fan of that temple)
https://design.newcity.com/2023/11/01/concrete-faith-how-the-creation-of-the-bahai-house-of-worship-changed-the-course-of-architecture-cab-2023/
All said, I would agree the ornamentation doesn’t approach Sullivan’s! Its the form of the temple as whole that does it for me.
The Chile temple for reference:
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Looks like a waterlily about to bloom.
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hmm, as for the gothic reference, it seems more likely minarets are the model. My only understanding of gothic aesthetics comes from Ernst Bloch, who describes an anxious reaching after a receding heaven.
As forced as that symbolism seems to me, it’s fun to play with it a little in reference to the more Islamicate theology of the Baha’i faith. Perhaps this speaks further to the idealism you’re understandably ambivalent toward.
The Islamicate roots here would seem to avoid that sort of anxious reach, with the divine being firmly rooted in history and human sociality. As a sufi teacher once put it to me, the sign is the ontological extension of the thing signified in Islam, not a barren reflection as often seen in Christian, especially Catholic, theology and its sacrificial axis. No need for an anxious reaching, then, something eliciting more firmness and stability seems called for.
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Quick final comment. One, it is interesting to note the temple was designed even before Bourgeois won the competition in the 19-teens. Some say as early as 1903. Very revolutionary for its time!
Two, perhaps it helps to take a look at the house Louis Bourgeois built for himself while he worked on the temple. Such repose. A refined and serious bit of architecture, perhaps helps put into perspective the otherwise very eclectic temple.
Haha, sorry for the overload. It feels in my heart somewhat like someone mocking Sullivan’s Getty tomb or something! I demand justice 😉
But, again, I mostly jest and I certainly don’t expect you to cater to others!
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I admire this building right up to the balustrades. Why balustrades? Gah!
Thanks again for your thoughtful comments and for putting up with my highly opinioned ways.
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Hmm it won’t let me like or reply – only add a new comment. Thanks for your responses. And thanks for an earnest take on the temple, there’s a few interesting architectural write-ups out there but most avoid personal opinion perhaps out of deference to it’s religious nature. This is a bummer, opinion is the stuff of art and, wincing aside, I enjoyed finding this honest commentary on it!
Be well
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