Bahai House of Worship, Wilmette
Wilmette, Illinois, United States
The oldest surviving Bahai House of Worship in the world, a nine-sided white domed temple on the Lake Michigan shore, dedicated in 1953 and open to devotion of every religion.
The cornerstone was laid by Abdu'l-Baha in 1912, construction began in 1920 to a design by the French-Canadian architect Louis Bourgeois, and the Depression delayed completion until the temple opened for worship in 1953. The building's symbolism is its geometry: nine sides, nine entrances, a garden of nine paths, and a dome that catches light differently from every approach. It is a National Register property and one of eight continental Bahai temples, the oldest standing.
Worship here is the Bahai pattern: devotions in the auditorium read from the scriptures of many religions, with no sermons and no collections, open daily to everyone. The gardens are a public park on the Lake Michigan shore, and the visitor center explains the temple's long construction.
Visiting
The temple's official pages carry current hours; open daily with free admission, gardens open to the public, reachable on the Purple Line from Chicago.
Photo: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baha%27i_Temple_at_Dusk.jpg), CC BY-SA 4.0, MichaelDPhotos.
Associated traditions & practices
Visitor stories