Baha'i Houses of Worship

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One of the places designated for the construction of a Baha'i House of Worship is in Papua New Guinea... The design for a House of Worship is influenced by the culture in which it is constructed... As an example there is a Lotus shape in the House of Worship in New Delhi India...

A friend of mine that I've known for oh around six years or so has submitted a design for a Baha'i House of Worship in Papua New Guinea.. Now this is interesting to me because Baha'i Houses of Worship have nine entrances or sides... and are open to anyone who wants to worship God in a given community. There are only about eight Houses of Worship or so around the world. One in Wilmette Illinois, one in Panama, Frankfurt, Germany; New Delhi, India; Kampala Uganda; Sydney Australia; Samoan Islands and one is being built in Santiago Chile. One House of Worhip ... the first to be built in around 1907 was seized and appropriated by Soviet authorities in Ishqabad Turkministan.

My friend's design interestingly is inspired by the Nautilus Shell which he feels is a natural form for that part of the Pacific as they have the Nautilus shell in nature there...the Indo-Pacific Oceans.

So he has designed an upper roof in the form of the coiled shell and has entrances around it. He was particularly inspired by the poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes... "build thee more stately mansions oh my soul.. and as the swift seasons roll" truly an oceanic rhythm.

So I'm interested to see how this is going to turn out. His concept has been submitted to a review committee in Papua New Guinea.

 

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Dependencies of Baha'i Houses of Worship

Aside from the "central" HOuse of Worship there will be dependencies as the following citation suggests:


The Mashriqu'l-Adhkar (The Dawning-Place of the Praise of
God) comprises a central House of Worship and, clustered
around it, a number of dependencies which, in the words of
Shoghi Effendi,

"shall afford relief to the suffering,

sustenance to the poor,

shelter to the wayfarer,

solace to the bereaved,

and
education to the ignorant."

Within the central edifice there shall be read, chanted or sung only the words of the Sacred
Scriptures of the revealed religions, or hymns based upon those
words.

"Blessed is he", wrote Bahá'u'lláh in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas,
"who directeth his steps towards the Mashriqu'l-Adhkar at the hour
of dawn, communing with Him, attuned to His remembrance, imploring His
forgiveness. And having entered therein, let him sit in
silence to hearken to the verses of God, the Sovereign, the Almighty,
the All-Praised."

~ Baha'u'llah, Synopsis and Codification of the Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 61

 

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Prayers and readings from the scriptures of other religions are permissible in a House of Worship:

"As to the reading of prayers or selections from the Sacred Writings of other religions such readings are permissible, and indeed from time to time are included in the devotional programmes of Bahá'í Houses of Worship, demonstrating thereby the universality of our Faith."

(From a letter written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to an individual believer, June 7, 1974)

(Compilations, Lights of Guidance, p. 457)