Children’s class kit
architecture — Teens (13–17)
Auto-assembled from the Bahai Story Library
Stories
- Designing the Arc on Mount Carmel
In *The Priceless Pearl* Rúḥíyyih Khánum recounts how Shoghi Effendi, walking the slope of Mount Carmel year after year, conceived and laid out the great Arc of buildings — the International Archives, the Universal House of Justice site, the Centre for the Study of the Texts, the Teaching Centre — on which the world administrative institutions of the Faith would in time stand.
— Rúḥíyyih Khánum, The Priceless Pearl
- He Asked His Father-in-Law to Design It: The Shrine of the Báb
Rúḥíyyih Khánum's *The Priceless Pearl* recounts how, in 1942, Shoghi Effendi asked his own father-in-law — the celebrated Canadian architect William Sutherland Maxwell, then resident in Haifa — to design the arcade and superstructure of the Shrine of the Báb on Mount Carmel. The colonnade of Baveno granite and the Chiampo arches were the answer.
— Rúḥíyyih Khánum, The Priceless Pearl
- Thousands of Mashriqu'l-Adhkárs: 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Dedication Talk
At the dedication of the Mashriqu'l-Adhkár grounds in Wilmette on May 1, 1912 — the same gathering at which Nettie Tobin's stone was laid as the cornerstone — 'Abdu'l-Bahá spoke about the future Houses of Worship that would arise across the world, and gave the specific architectural instruction that the building must be *circular,* never triangular.
— 'Abdu'l-Bahá, The Promulgation of Universal Peace
Discussion questions
Quote to memorize
“Year by year, walking the slope, the Guardian conceived the great Arc on which the world institutions of the Cause would rise.”
Coloring page
Girih Knot
A geometric pattern from the Persian girih tradition — interlocking strapwork that recurs in the architecture of mosques, tombs, and the Bahá'í Holy Places.