The University of Toronto's Multifaith Centre

When Moriyama & Teshima Architects were commissioned to design a multifaith space within the existing Koffler Centre at the University of Toronto, they were given what might have been an impossible brief. While keeping to the University’s secular mandate, they were to create a refuge and place of worship which was programmatically and liturgically flexible enough to accommodate all spiritualities; celebrating the creeds of the roughly 30 religious organisations on campus without bias, and providing a forum for debate.

Implicitly, part of its mission was to manifest cultural and moral relativism in built form – an endeavour perhaps condemned to the necessary vagueness which lies at the heart of relativism itself. Nevertheless, the Multifaith Centre has succeeded in creating a physical common ground between religious faiths and secularism where none existed before. In the first month of operation, up to 60 events were hosted in the centre, which was constructed on a meagre budget (as far as university construction budgets go) of Canadian $1.43m.

The hall is removed from the rest of the Koffler Centre, creating a transition between the secular and religious. The onyx wall panels open to reveal alcoves for the storage of liturgical artefacts and scriptures of different religions. Ablution facilities are located away from washrooms, with running water at a constant temperature, and there are provisions for gender-segregated worship.

The project employs the shared metaphor of enlightenment; its most salient feature being the backlit glass-laminated onyx ceiling and eastern wall of the prayer hall, which bathe worshippers in a diffuse white light. It is a temple to the coexistence and discussion of moderate religions.

The Multifaith Centre necessarily frames fundamental commonalities and flattens extremes, much in the way that the pure geometry of the International style has created a shared architectural language for the developed world, sometimes at the expense of local tradition and sensitivity to context, but in general for the sake of harmony and unison. The onyx wall and ceiling for example, which holds up a tonne of onyx at 39kg per square metre, are broken up into a pattern of panels inspired by numerologies sacred to the major religions. Fused together into one grid, this is hard to read and somewhat tokenistic. This and other examples of a lack of semantic clarity or specificity in the project’s architectural expression may simply be a reflection of the irreconcilability of certain beliefs.

But rarely is one idea simply replaced with another. More often when ideas must be reconciled, they are synthesized into something new altogether; and when the secular process of globalisation collides with a multitude of conflicting belief systems, a new culture and architecture are born. This seems to be sensitively reflected in the Multifaith Centre. It is in fact Moriyama & Teshima’s distinctly Canadian take on what Australians would call multiculturalism, and on the complex value-laden issue of national identity. The architects have had to consider – and have helped shape the public’s attitudes towards – these issues before, such as in designing the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa with Griffiths Rankin Cook Architects.

In this very American century, Canada, like Australia, is self-consciously at the periphery. Like Australia, Canada lacks a homogenous sense of identity, pensive about being absorbed by the textureless international culture of a globalised world; about one day becoming indistinguishable from the US. If America was baptised in the blaze of a revolution, Canada and Australia, as the hinterland and outback of the Commonwealth respectively, have only recently grown into adolescence. In both countries one finds an uncertain tension between Western architectural heritage and Aboriginal ways of relating to the land. Both face the challenge of asserting a national identity while having been a frontier colony, and now a ‘land of immigrants’– itself a contentious phrase on stolen land. Roughly half the population of Toronto in fact is foreign-born, making it one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world.

Yet despite the blurring of borders and the difficulty of definition, it is possible to speak of a Canadian architecture, just as one can meaningfully describe certain architecture to be Australian. Both Canada and Australia are past the stage of imitation, or of self-definition through the erection of nationalised romantic monuments. Architects in both countries, perhaps sparked by the increased awareness of environmentalism and the rights of Aborigines and recent immigrants, are reconsidering their country’s vernacular and the geography with which it interacts. Even the ravines of Toronto demand a thoughtful reconsideration of architectural and urban design, and make the city unique within Canada.

The developing Canadian tradition has the pleasure of being marginal but not provincial, internationally informed but not derivative, newly confident in having conquered the frontiers and yet humble. (Canada is yet to produce a ‘star’ architect like Gehry or Koolhaas.) It recognises what Northrop Frye described as “the humanly undigested” in the Canadian landscape, but is no longer intimidated by it. Instead it seeks to provide an honest response to both the literal wilderness and the ideological wilderness of the post-modern city.

The prayer hall of Moriyama & Teshima’s Multifaith Centre is a locus point where these cultural trajectories meet. Its muted architectural palette speaks of different things to different visitors; but to all, it is a serene retreat, reverent rather than oppressive, minimal but human rather than ascetic. Occasionally, dripping water can be heard from the green wall in the meditation room. The centre, while accommodating all faiths, does not evoke any one in particular. +

1 Avoiding icons and symbolism, ‘light’ (spiritual and metaphysical) emerged as common to all faiths. The architectural expression of light is the central feature of the space: a dramatic ceiling and front wall of translucent white Onyx panels are luminous and framed in Venetian plaster. 2 The ablution facilities are located away from the washrooms to maintain their dignity. 3 Shelving for shoes is provided at two entrances to the prayer hall. 4 The onyx wall panels hide alcoves in which liturgical artifacts can be stored. 5 Many of the materials used were sourced locally and have high recycled content. African Sapele hardwood, Eramosa limestone, and white Venetian plaster complement the dominant onyx.

IMAGES courtesy of Tom Arban