Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), the new American Buddhist Cultural Society Temple, also known as the San Bao Temple, has broken ground in San Francisco, California. Located on Van Ness Avenue, the new six-story facility will include a community center, a Buddhist shrine, and a meditation room on the upper levels, along with three levels of private dormitories for visiting monastics and volunteers. In the center of the building, a light-filled atrium offers additional amenities, such as a public art gallery, bookstore, teahouse, and community gathering hall. The temple is expected to open by the end of 2024.
For the last 30 years, the 13,200-square-foot site has been the center of the Bay Area’s Buddhist community. The reconstruction and upgrading of the current single-story temple facility aims to establish a modern and environmentally friendly cultural center for practitioners and the general public. The facility will house approximately 41,000 square feet of program, while maintaining a respectful relationship with the neighboring buildings. A contemplative courtyard at the center of the temple opens up the middle of the site, minimizing the shadows cast on the stained-glass windows of the St. Luke’s Episcopal Church to the north and on the windows of the north-facing units of 1776 Sacramento Street condominiums.
The building’s façade offers a contemporary interpretation of traditional Buddhist architectural elements, bridging historic cultural themes with a modern material palette. On a similar note, the temple’s roofline is a reference to the wide ridged eaves of a traditional Buddhist temple roof, while the entryway points toward the symbolic three-gate entrance. The cladding of the façade mimics the verticality of bamboo shafts and acts as a shade screen on the western façade reminiscent of the rectangular patchwork of Buddhist jiasha robes.
At a programmatic level, the temple strives to provide both the practitioners and the public with a zen retreat for contemplation. To support this, a series of community-orientated spaces host a public tea room, gallery, bookstore, and peaceful meditation spaces. The central atrium, connected to the small interior garden, creates a buffer zone between the gallery and the tea area. On the upper levels, a Buddhist shrine and meditation room provide a quiet retreat. The education center is also dedicated to the needs of the local community, offering spaces for classes and workshops for adults and children.
Earlier last year, SOM presented the Urban Sequoia NOW concept, a proposal developed in line with the theme of COP27, representing an easy-to-implement design that can sequester carbon from the atmosphere throughout its lifecycle. The internationally-renown architecture office has also been appointed to develop the modernization plan for the Hirshhorn Museum’s interior and plaza, in collaboration with Selldorf Architects.
