The Harmony Center

For our groups’ Universal Sacred Space project, we began by considering the three “peoples of the book”, the Abrahamic religions of Muslim, Christianity, and Judaism. We felt that to provide a universal place of worship that each of these groups would accept as “sacred” would be the primary challenge. The issue is, to begin with, that to truly be a Sacred Space, the space must be dedicated solely to a single group and use. As such, our universal sacred space will be symbolic in itself of our planet and our need as a people to be able to coexist - to live together in peace and harmony regardless of our individual beliefs.

Our space will be a large building, which will incorporate into the architecture several symbolic references for each group who will worship here. The shape of the building will be a perfect circle. This will symbolize several things such as the infinity of God, unity, and the perfection of all creation. This will also allow for no preset ideas of how the space is intended to be used for a particular group. Around the perimeter, inset in the walls, there will be twelve rectangular windows beginning at the floor and extending to the top of the wall. These windows will be placed 30degrees apart and will be fitted with glass in a color scheme which corresponds to the colors of the rainbow (in order from shades of violet, blue, green, yellow, to red). These windows are to be symbolic as well. They will remind the worshipper of the twelve apostles of Christ, or the twelve tribes of Israel, or the equal spacing and regular geometry will be symbolic to the Muslim group as God’s perfection. Also, the rainbow color scheme will symbolize the promises of God. More architectural features can be introduced to provide more symbolism. For instance between each window, geometric shapes will be placed on the wall for each group. For Judaism, two equilateral triangles will be placed over each other, offset with one pointing up and the other pointing down. If these shapes were to be placed directly over each other, they would form the star of David. Similarly, for Christianity, two rectangular shapes would be placed offset such that if they were placed over each other, they would form the shape of a cross. Or three circular shapes could be placed in a linked pattern to symbolize the Holy Trinity. Each group would have the ultimate decision for what they wish to symbolize and how. The entry into the space would be via a large set of double doors. These doors would span almost the entire distance between two of the windows mentioned above. They would also extend to the top of the wall. In this way, the entrance, when open, would provide absolutely no obstruction to all who wish to come and worship in their own way.

Of course, providing the symbolism inherent in the architecture, provides a permanent sort of ownership for each of the groups who will use this space without directly “offending” any other group or diminishing the sanctity of the space for them. But, each group will also want to have more real symbols of their faith. Buddhists for example will require a statue of Buddha to be place in the space during their gatherings. It is for this reason, beneath the building, there will be a basement constructed with multiple, individual storage areas for each group to store their sacraments and religious artifacts. These can be brought out and placed in the space according to each groups requirements such as communion, etc.