The Lotus Temple, the Baháʼí House of Worship completed in New Delhi in 1986, gathers twenty-seven free-standing Pentelic-marble petals — the same stone as the Parthenon — into clusters of three to form nine sides rising from nine turquoise pools. Architect Fariborz Sahba turned a single botanical idea into pure geometry.

This system borrows the building's one decisive contrast: cool marble white set as figure against the deep turquoise of reflecting water. The voice is restrained, symmetrical, and geometric — generous negative space, thin precise rules, and nine-fold order rather than ornament.