A worship building where all major religions of the world, including atheism, have an abode. The spatial unity of the building, expressed as the most elemental architectural type of all (the house), is greater than the sum of the parts. As an embodiment of metaphysical thinking, every room provides a phenomenological experience with high contents of iconography i.e.: the color of certain elements is associated with precise religious beliefs, the lighting quality of the rooms express ideas of eternal life and/or suffering, even the open sky, at the very end of the spatial sequence, places a role in the general religious discourse

 

As a new American civic building, it occupies the typical 50’ X 100’ lot found in most cities throughout the country. The slight primitivism of its architectural type is accepted as a source of high contrast to the consumptive spectacle of the contemporary city. The polycarbonate translucid quality of the building is meant to provide a safe/opaque public refuge in the midst of the sheer urban/suburban ugliness that characterizes most of the American city

 

The perimeter of the lot houses a vegetable garden (Garden of Eden). Upon entry, one is confronted with a continuous area of circumambulation around the perimeter of the interior; a small meditation space with a green bench faces the building portal; following the sequence, one finds a place to prepare kosher meals also associated with the myth of the last supper; a purple balcony for priests of many faiths faces the believers below; at the end of the first floor, there is a library containing documents in support and against every major religion. The second floor is a kind of madrasa/mosque auditorium; the space contains an eleven-step staircase that could be used as a Muslim minbar. The third floor ascended through a dark staircase contains a Hindu gharba-griha (small room) with a limga. The final stage of the path is an open-air patio that connects the sky and its potential astrological meanings with the practical life of humans