The Bahá'í World Centre, the spiritual and administrative heart of the Bahá'í Faith, covers 2,150,000 sq ft (20 hectares) on Mt. Carmel in Haifa. Following Israel's independence, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister, granted the Bahá'í Holy Places in Haifa and Acre land, legal status, and permanent tax exemptions — and established a department for the Bahá'í within the Ministry of Religious Affairs.”
The buildings at the Bahá'í World Centre were designed in Vancouver, British Columbia. Although the drawings were done in the metric system, they required adapting the details and construction methodologies for an international contingent of contractors, including the Israelis, to execute demanding master building project.
As the site architect hired because of my background in design documentation, and construction, I was responsible for the interior fit-out and the entire exterior envelope — e.g., the marble, teak doors and windows, including the blocking, the granite and marble floors, the Jerusalem stone, and the radial drywall framing. Often elements were executed more than once,
The Bahá'í brought their best architects and engineers from all over the world who volunteered for a minimum of two years to assist in site inspection and the flood of RFIs (requests for information) that developing the details on this project required. Between their team and the general construction team, composed of Turkish, German, Canadian, Israeli and American, French and Italian, at any one time there were twenty or more countries; represented on site.
The Bahá'í World Centre was designed and built to last centuries. In 2008 it was designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The Centre functions as an active international hub for scholarship and administration. This working facility houses scholars and administrators engaged in text analysis, translation, and research to develop the global coordination of the Bahá'í Faith. To support this continuous, daily operation across generations, the building's infrastructure sets an extraordinary standard of permanence.
