I don’t care much about religion or faith. But architecture is a different thing. I however appreciate beautiful architecture whether it is a religious one or non-religious one.

I am fascinated by a Hindu temple, Swaminarayan Mandir, in a Hindu-minority country, Canada. The example of the ancient art and architecture opened officially on July 22, 2007 and is located near Highway 427 and Finch Avenue West, Toronto.

The $40-million project involved more than 2,000 Indian craftsmen. In addition to the craftsmen and about 400 volunteers from Toronto’s Hindu community also volunteered in the construction for more than a year.

The building was constructed by using 24,000 hand-carved pieces of Turkish limestone and Italian Carrara marble. The rock pieces prepared out of Canada, were shipped across the ocean and were assembled in Toronto. It was such a big project and because of the thousands of rock pieces, each of the parts were marked with a bar code to help in the assembly. The construction was like assembling various pieces to make it into the huge temple building.
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