Building a home for Krishna Balarama - Location & Design

The Location

The first step in actually constructing our temple was to find a good location. I liked best a one-acre site in the Raman Reti district, about five miles west of the center of town. I sent Srila Prabhupada a map and told him that the owners, Mr. and Mrs. Saraf, wanted to donate the land to us. 

The Sarafs had become familiar with some ISKCON devotees who were living in Vrndavana at a place known as Brahma-kunda, and they liked them very much. Srila Prabhupada accepted the donation and told us to go on with the work of making an ISKCON, Vrindavana, center.
 

The Design

The next step in the project was to employ an architect to draw up plans for the building itself. Two architects from India submitted one plan each - very grandiose schemes - and Saurabha dasa, a devotee of Srila Prabhupada's from Holland, submitted two plans. We chose one of his. He didn't have as many years of experience as the professional architects, but still his design outclassed theirs. 

As a devotee, he knew exactly how to arrange things for the pleasure of the Deities on the altar. He designed four Deity workrooms directly underneath the altar - one for sewing, one for storing decorations, one for storing big items such as swings, thrones, and hanging backdrops, and one room with a safe where the Deities' jewelry could be kept. No ordinary architect could have thought of these things.

(Gurudasa Swami, How It All Began...)