This episode originally aired 22 May 2022.

Have you ever found yourself in a place where heaven and earth seem to meet? Sacred architecture and aesthetics can make a person experience the numinous, even in a building not set aside for a religious purpose. Also, Papua New Guinea’s Baha’i community, are about to open a new house of worship in Port Moresby.

Watch The Architect and the Mosque on Compass.

Read Ayla Lepine’s article about sacred architecture on The Architectural Review.

Ayla Lepine is the author of Gothic Legacies: Four Centuries of Tradition and Innovation in Art and Architecture and Modern Architecture and Religious Communities, 1850–1970.

More information about Papua New Guinea’s new Baha’i house of worship

Official Site of the PNG Baha'i Community

Rev Dr Ayla Lepine is an art historian and Ahmanson Fellow in Art and Religion at the National Gallery in London.

Zha Agabe-Granfar and Saeed Granfar are part of the Baha’i community in Papua New Guinea. Saeed is the consulting architect of the new Baha’i temple in Port Moresby.