The Architect Who Was Family

A retelling for children, based on The Priceless Pearl by Rúḥíyyih Khánum.

High on the slope of Mount Carmel, looking out over the sea, there stood a small stone building. It was plain and low, just a simple block of stone. But it was one of the most precious places on all the earth, because inside it rested the Báb.

That little Shrine had been built long before, by 'Abdu'l-Bahá Himself, in the early years of the new century. And 'Abdu'l-Bahá had always known that this was only the beginning. One day, He said, something far more beautiful would rise above it — a building grand enough to honor the One whose remains it held. There would be a ring of tall columns, graceful arches, and a shining dome.

But who would build such a thing? And when?

That task came to fall on 'Abdu'l-Bahá's grandson, Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Faith. And the moment he chose to begin it was just about the hardest moment anyone could pick.

The year was 1942. All over the world a terrible war was raging — the Second World War. Ships were sunk at sea. Travel was dangerous and almost impossible. Stone, metal, wood, workers — everything needed for building was scarce, because the whole world was pouring its strength into the war. Most people would have said it was no time to build at all, and that it would be far better to wait until the world was at peace.

Shoghi Effendi did not wait.

Instead, he made a quiet decision — the kind of decision Rúḥíyyih Khánum remembered with great pride. He needed an architect, someone who could dream up the beautiful crown for the Shrine and draw it just right. And the person he turned to was someone very close to home.

He asked his own father-in-law.

The father-in-law's name was William Sutherland Maxwell, and he was no ordinary man. He was one of the most famous architects in all of Canada. He had designed great and important buildings, including a parliament building in the city of Quebec. And it so happened that, at this very time, he was living right there in Haifa, near his daughter and the Guardian.

So Mr. Maxwell set to work — not in some grand office with hundreds of helpers, but in his own small studio in Haifa, with his pencils and his paper and his careful eye.

What he drew was something the world had never quite seen before. He blended two great traditions of building — one from the East and one from the West — and made them fit together in perfect harmony, just as the Faith teaches that all the peoples of the world belong together as one. There would be a ring of tall columns made of rose-colored granite from the north of Italy. There would be arches carved from Italian stone in a graceful Eastern style. And high above it all, a golden dome to catch the sun. Mr. Maxwell measured and calculated every proportion so that the whole building would look balanced and beautiful from every side.

But a drawing on paper is only a beginning. Someone had to actually make all those columns and arches — and remember, the world was still at war.

That enormous job went to a man named Dr. Ugo Giachery, who lived in Italy. What a task it was! In the middle of wartime, and in the difficult years afterward, he had to find the right stone, and find skilled Italian craftsmen who could cut it, carve it, and polish it until it shone — all exactly the way Mr. Maxwell's drawings showed. Piece by careful piece, the work was done: twenty-eight tall columns, eight pilasters set against the walls, twenty-eight arches, and many smaller pieces besides. And then, piece by piece, each one was packed up and shipped across the sea to Haifa, where they were lifted into place at last.

It took years and years of patience. But in 1953, the work was finished. The beautiful crown that 'Abdu'l-Bahá had foreseen so long before now rose above the little stone Shrine, with its columns and its arches and its golden dome — and it still stands on Mount Carmel today.

If you think about it, something quiet and surprising had happened. The greatest, most visible building of the whole Faith had not come from a huge company or a crowd of important people making a lot of noise. It had grown out of a small office, a small family, and a few faithful friends — a grandson who would not let even a world war stop him, a father-in-law bending over his drawings, and a friend far away gathering stone in the middle of danger. Great and lasting things are often built that way: quietly, patiently, and with great love, by people willing to give their very best.

This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see "He Asked His Father-in-Law to Design It: The Shrine of the Báb".

Khánum, R.. (1969). *The Priceless Pearl*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust.