A Beautiful Hybrid

What jars you first about the Sharon Temple are its proportions — so odd and yet fiercely symmetrical that seeing it is like looking at a wedding cake or a child’s toy. The perfectly square first storey is topped with a second storey that looks as though it’s half the length and width of the first, and the third storey looks like half of the second. It makes sense: The construction of a breakaway sect of Quakers, it reflects its origins in its breakaway architecture.

The temple is the creation of the Children of Peace, a nineteenth-century splinter group of Upper Canada Quakers. Led by a disenchanted Quaker named David Willson, the sect began in 1812 with just five people and within a few years grew to 350 members focused on establishing a collaborative society. In the spirit of social justice, they established Ontario’s first credit union and a co-operative system of farming based on land sharing.

Seen in person, the more elaborate details of its architecture become apparent. Each of the four corners of its three storeys is topped by a lantern, together representing the twelve disciples and the Twelve Tribes of Israel. In a nod to social equality, enormous doors open on all four sides of the sixty-by-sixty-foot (18.3-by-18.3-metres) temple, symbolically ensuring that everyone can enter on equal footing.

Inside, the sense of the uncanny looms larger. In the centre of the main floor, a colonnade surrounds an artisanal minibuilding crafted by Children of Peace woodworker John Doan. This is the ark, the covered structure containing a Bible that’s open to the Ten Commandments.

The second-floor mezzanine, open to the ground floor, is where Children of Peace musicians would perform for the community. The building’s acoustics made the music seem to be coming from everywhere. “The Temple itself is, arguably, a musical instrument,” said Mark Fram, an architectural consultant and co-author with Schrauwers of a book about the temple. Music, Fram noted, was “a distinctly un-Quaker activity, but one embraced by the Children of Peace.”

The narrow staircase to the mezzanine level, known as Jacob’s Ladder, is even more otherworldly. To a casual observer, it’s hard to believe that the entire stairway isn’t curved — but the architecture is playing tricks on us. The staircase runs from top to bottom in a steep but straight line, while the stringers — the structural elements anchoring it on each side — are slightly curved, creating the optical illusion that the entire flight of steps is curved.

The Sharon Temple is now surrounded by eight additional buildings, all of them previously connected to or occupied by the original Children of Peace members. Relocated and rebuilt around the temple, they are remarkable complements to the large edifice they encircle.

These structures include David Willson’s study, a small stand-alone building whose architecture evokes the temple flipped inside-out; master builder Ebenezer Doan’s family home; a trio of his outbuildings known as the drive shed, leanto, and granary; Ebenezer’s nephew Jesse Doan’s log cabin, exemplifying early settler architecture; the community’s cookhouse; and even David Willson’s distinctive round outhouse.

At the back of the property is a large open-air garden, first planted in 2018 and since then maintained with help from volunteers. Providing a seasonal bounty for donations to community members and a local food bank, it is a fitting legacy to the spirit of charitable sustenance that was endorsed by the Children of Peace.

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