David Rivas Photography

The Lotus Temple is a Baháʼí House of Worship in Kalkaji, New Delhi, India. It was completed in December 1986. Notable for its lotus-like shape, it has become a prominent attraction in the city.

Biblioteca Vasconcelos, also known as the Megabiblioteca by the press, is a library in the Buenavista neighborhood of Mexico City. It is dedicated to José Vasconcelos, the philosopher and former president of the National Library of Mexico. The library is spread across 38,000 square metres (409,000 sq ft.) The library is located in the Cuauhtémoc borough, adjacent to the Buenavista railway station, where the Metro, suburban train, and Metrobús meet. It is adorned by several sculptures by Mexican artists, including Gabriel Orozco’s Ballena (Whale), prominently located at the centre of the building.

The structure was designed by the Mexican architects Alberto Kalach and Juan Palomar. Lily Carr, writing in 2021 noted, “the structure’s cavernous, hollowed-out interior of an ossified matrix of suspended, expandable shelves presents the project as an awe-inspiring, chill-inducing spectacular that immerses the first-time visitor in the architects’ vision of a library as a container, or ‘ark, a carrier of human knowledge.”