Friday Fact (late again, sorry!): A Bloomin’ Building

The past few weeks at work, I’ve been writing visual descriptions for pictures of India that are going into a online database for teachers to use.  Sometimes, this involves a little detective work, because the lady who took the pictures left us only cryptic slide notes in horrible handwriting.  So I was puzzled when I came to a picture of a strange-looking building with the title “Temple-Delhi.”  I looked up more photos and was astounded by what I found.

It was a temple that looked like a flower!  Not just vaguely resembling it, but definitively flower-like.  It’s called the Indian Bahai Temple, but the locals and most tourists call it the Lotus Temple.  It’s made of concrete petals supported by steel beams.  Just out of sight in the middle of the petals, there is a steel and glass dome to keep out the elements.  The flower is surrounded by nine huge pools over which there are walkways and bridges.

The petals are formed fairly simply: spheres of varying radii and with centers in different places.  The architect figured in deflection for wind and expansion and contraction, so the petals can move about 3mm for every meter.  There are neoprene layers where the beams meet to buffer changes in position.  Because Indian cement is evidently extremely variable, all the cement to make them was imported from Korea.  To get the color, the cement was then mixed with dolomite from near Delhi and with white silica sand from Jaipur, India.  And to make sure the concrete didn’t cure too quickly and therefore weaken, a sprinkler system was rigged at the top of the petals.  On hot days, the mix was regulated by mixing in ice. 

I tell you what…this building has gone on my list of things to see before I die.