Urban Toronto – https://urbantoronto.ca
February 3, 2023 by Matias Bessai
Being one of Toronto’s internationally acclaimed architecture firms, Hariri Pontarini Architects has experience when it comes to making headlines, and with the recent announcement of a striking new institutional project, the studio seems to have done it again. The firm has been commissioned by the Canadian arm of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Canada to design the religious group’s new Bahá’í National Centre and Temple in Markham, and have stepped up to the task, delivering a dynamic proposal that will surely catch the eye of the global architecture community.
The project expands on the existing relationship between Hariri Pontarini Architects and the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís, forged over the last decade through the design of the Bahá’í Temple of South America in Santiago, Chile.
Since its completion in 2016, the Santiago temple has been touted as a generational success, representing some of the finest achievements in cultural design while simultaneously activating a number of highly sophisticated design systems, with a focus on the manipulation of light through translucent materials. The building’s extensive list of accolades includes the American Institute of Architecture Innovation Award, and the World Architecture News Award for Best in the Americas, Civic Building, to name just a couple.