Designing the Shrine of the Báb

*A retelling based on **The Priceless Pearl** by Rúḥíyyih Khánum (1969). Quotations are from the book.*

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The Shrine that 'Abdu'l-Bahá had built on Mount Carmel was, as Shoghi Effendi later described it to the Haifa authorities, "a homely building with a fortress-like appearance." 'Abdu'l-Bahá had anticipated a dome above it. Rúḥíyyih Khánum writes that the Shrine of the Báb was the Guardian's second greatest concern at the World Centre.

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Her father, William Sutherland Maxwell, came to live in Haifa after her mother died in 1940. Having tried him on various small projects, Shoghi Effendi suddenly, "towards the end of 1942," as she recalls, asked him to design the superstructure of the Shrine. "The Builder had at last been given the vehicle whereby he could realize the plan of 'Abdu'l-Bahá."

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The Guardian gave only a few brief indications. The Shrine must have a dome and an arcade, must be neither purely western nor purely eastern in style, and must not look like a mosque or a church. Maxwell's first design had a pyramid-shaped dome, which Shoghi Effendi did not like. The second he found too European in emphasis.

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Maxwell then went back to the style of dome he had drawn for his entry in the competition for the American Bahá'í Temple, with its Indian influence. The Guardian was pleased with this, except for the upper part of the clerestory, and for weeks Maxwell submitted sketch after sketch until the minarets were approved on 25 December 1943.

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A scale model, most of it made by Maxwell himself, was shown to the believers gathered in Haifa for the centenary of the Báb's Declaration in May 1944.

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In applying for the building permit, Shoghi Effendi described Maxwell as the well-known Canadian architect whose firm had built the Château Frontenac Hotel in Quebec and the House of Parliament in Regina. Building could not begin until after the war. By 1948 Palestine was in civil strife; the quarries for suitable local stone lay near the Lebanese frontier and could promise no deliveries, and skilled carvers were practically unobtainable. The Guardian decided to have the work done in Italy.

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Maxwell flew there to place the contracts, on one of the last planes out of Lydda before the airport was taken, and Dr. Ugo Giachery was to act as the Guardian's representative in Italy. That year Shoghi Effendi himself directed the excavation of the rock behind the Shrine, day after day, to make room for the arcade. The foundations were begun in February 1949, and shipments of stone arrived from Italy.

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Maxwell died in March 1952 and did not see the work finished. The superstructure, crowned by its golden dome, was completed in 1953.

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*A retelling based on **The Priceless Pearl** (Rúḥíyyih Khánum, 1969). For the fuller account, see the original.*

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