Sharon Temple - The Illumination

I first discovered the Sharon Temple, accidentally, while on a site visit a few years back, for a potential Community Centre project in nearby East Gwillimbury. It was daytime and no one was around, the hall was empty, so I could just sit there in silence, take it all in. It’s an amazing space! The plan is a simple square, all constructed of wood, the interior is sparsely decorated with a series of central post structure that supports the tiered tower above. On Friday September 9th, was the end of summer illumination event at the Sharon Temple. If you’ve never experienced this, you should try to attend the next time they have the ceremony. The ceremony is simply an evening gathering at the Sharon Temple, at sunset, consisting of about a hundred guests, and a choir of 10-12 (The Marion Singers). The inside of the hall was lit with candles along the perimeter of space. The choir use small reading lamps to be able to view their music – the space was almost dark otherwise. The resulting illumination was magical and spiritual with the choir concert at the front, all the guest sitting along the perimeter – you got a very good sense of how such ceremonies would been experienced by the Children of Peace community, in the Temple’s early days. https://lnkd.in/gUKxGU67 The Sharon Temple was constructed by the Children of Peace, an Upper Canada Quaker sect from 1825 – 1831. The Temple is an architectural symbol of their vision of a society based on the values of peace, equality, and social justice. It opened as a museum in 1918 and was designated a National Historic Site in 1990 because of its historic and architectural significance. Acquisition and preservation of the Temple, by the York Pioneers in 1917, was one of Canada’s first examples of historic preservation.