This TED Talk features architect Ciamac Hariri, recorded live at TEDNYC 2017.

The School of Architecture that I studied at some 30 years ago

happened to be across the street from the wonderful art gallery

designed by the great architect Louis Khan.

I loved that building and I used to visit it quite often.

And one day I saw the security guard run his hand across the concrete wall.

And it was the way he did it, the expression on his face.

Something touched me.

I could see that the security guard was moved by the building

and that architecture has that capacity

to move you. I could see it and I remember thinking, wow, how does architecture do that? At school,

I was learning to design. But here was a reaction of the heart,

and it touched me to the core. You know, you aspire for beauty, for sensuousness, for atmosphere, the emotional response.

That's the realm of the ineffable and the immeasurable.

And that's what you live for.

A chance to try.

So in 2003, there was an open call for designs for the Baha'i temple for South America. This was the first temple in all of South America. It's a

continental temple. A hugely important milestone for the Baha'i community, because this would be

the last of the continental temples

and would open the door for national and local temples to be built around the world. And the brief

was deceptively simple and unique in the annals of religion. A circular room,

nine sides,

...