Bahai Temple - Wilmette, IL
Posted by: 
adgorn
N 42° 04.410 W 087° 41.100
16T E 443335 N 4658163
The Baha’i House of Worship for the North American Continent is located on the shores of Lake Michigan. Build over a period of 40 years, the temple was dedicated for public worship in 1953 as the first of eight worldwide Baha'i Houses of Worship.
Waymark Code: WM59PP
Location: Illinois, United States
Date Posted: 12/02/2008
Views: 10
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visit link)
The other seven Houses of Worship are in Panama, Germany, Uganda, Australia, Western Samoa, India and Chile (currently under construction). The nine-sided domed temple, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, reflects the Baha'i belief in the unity of religions. The House of Worship is a place for personal prayer and meditation and is open to the public. Daily devotional services consist of the recitation of scriptures from the Baha'i Faith and the other divinely revealed religions.
Not long after the first World’s Parliament of Religions introduced Americans to the Baha'i Faith at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the Faith took hold and gradually gained momentum in the United States. Interest was particularly strong in the Chicago area, where Corinne True, one of the first American Baha’is, rallied the support of the more than 1,000 Baha’is throughout the country at the time to have the first Baha'i House of Worship in North America built in the Midwest.
Groundbreaking for the House of Worship occurred on May 1, 1912, in a ceremony blessed with the presence and participation of Abdu'l-Baha, son of the Founder of the Baha'i Faith. Construction began in earnest in 1920.
Chosen from a pool of 15 entries, French-Canadian architect Louis Bourgeois’ design no doubt involved the most effort. (Mr. Bourgeois was a member of the Bahai faith.) Thinking it would take three months to complete the architectural drawings, he found himself struggling for more than eight years, often working 16 hours a day. Unfortunately he died in 1930 before seeing his work completed.
John Early and Basil Taylor were responsible for developing the architectural concrete and casting processes to create and place the brilliant white panels that give the building its unique appearance.
Construction of the Baha'i House of Worship for the North American Continent in Wilmette, Ill. was completed and the temple formally dedicated on May 1, 1953. On the lower level of the House of Worship is Foundation Hall (the oldest part of the temple) and the Cornerstone Room, which contains the cornerstone laid by Abdu'l-Baha in 1912. The auditorium seats 1,192 visitors and features walls of lace-like ornamentation and a dome rising 138 feet above the main floor with a diameter of 90 feet. The structure stands in a nine-acre park, is supported by nine concrete piers sunk 90 feet below the water level of nearby Lake Michigan.