Photo: Rory Gardiner
In Jainism, Samavasarana is a fabled temple, towering at unimaginable heights through a tapering ascension of platforms. Samavasarana provides a crucial space for sacred communion between humans, animals, demigods, and enlightened beings, who sit at the formation’s apex. This divine structure has also inspired Serie Architect’s most recent project in Dharampur, India.
Spanning an impressive 16,000-square-meters (about 172,223 feet), the Raj Sabhagruh embodies the divinity and grandeur of Samavasarana. The Raj Sabhagruh gracefully anchors the Shrimad Rajchandra Ashram, and is surrounded by a concentric public plaza, sprawling gardens, an amphitheater, large dining hall, and a Jain temple.
A testament to its ambitious design, the Raj Sabhagruh encompasses everything from a vast auditorium and classrooms to a museum and gift shop. Like Samavasarna, the complex is also crowned by a 300-seat meditation hall, visualizing the aggregation of knowledge and the gradual journey toward enlightenment as visitors progress throughout its interior.
Each of the building’s 13 levels further this spiritual narrative, being rotated 45 degrees as they stack upwards. By intentionally forgoing columns, the Raj Sabhagruh instead relies upon this interconnected framework of concrete walls, one thin and curved enough to allow natural light to gently slip inside. The effect ultimately enhances the building’s sense of fluidity and expansiveness.
The exterior of the Raj Sabhagruh is similarly luminous, its sheer walls clad with over 800,000 hand-cut marble bricks. In an effort to reduce the building’s environmental impact, Serie Architects sourced and repurposed discarded marble off-cuts from nearby Makrana, Rajasthan. The facade has then been punctured with circular openings, allowing daylight to filter back into the complex’s interior.
“We tested several iterations exploring typologies of sacred form,” Christopher Lee and Kapil Gupta, Principals at Serie Architects, explain. “There was a deep desire to find an architecture that was contemporary, memorable, and timeless, that could serve as a signifier for a young, growing Ashram.”
The resulting structure is one of immense tranquility, solidifying it, as Serie Architects writes, as a “place for the acquisition of knowledge and inner spiritual experience.”
To learn more about the Raj Sabhagruh, visit the Serie Architects website.
Designed by Serie Architects, the Raj Sabhagruh is an ambitious space with a spiritual mission.
Photo: Rory Gardiner
Photo: Rory Gardiner
Photo: Rory Gardiner
Embodying tranquility and filled with natural light, the complex encompasses everything from a vast auditorium and classrooms to a museum and gift shop.
Photo: Rory Gardiner
Photo: Rory Gardiner
The Raj Sabhagruh derives inspiration from the Jain Samavasaran, a fabled temple, composed of a tapering ascension of platforms and representing the gradual progression toward enlightenment and knowledge.
Photo: Rory Gardiner
Photo: Rory Gardiner
Photo: Rory Gardiner
