A boat carrying visitors glides into the gaping mouth of a giant python and hurtles down its bubbling intestine. As the boat careers around in the snake’s churning belly you can hear screams.
A boat carrying visitors glides into the gaping mouth of a giant python and hurtles down its bubbling intestine. As the boat careers around in the snake’s churning belly you can hear screams. But wait, help is close at hand. Suddenly Krishna bursts on to the scene. Growing bigger and bigger, he rips apart the belly of the horrendous reptile and the boat emerges. As shouts of delight rent the air you wonder, “What is Krishna doing in Disneyland ”
This is really a scene that will be regularly played out at the Krishna Lila Theme park being built in the premises of the Vrindavan Chandrodaya Mandir in Vrindavan. Slated to be the world’s tallest temple, the structure will reach a massive 700 feet in the sky with a footprint of 5.5 acres. This skyscraper temple has been designed as an ultra-modern steel and glass structure harmoniously blending in elements of the traditional “Nagara” style of Indian temple architecture.
Temple halls: Four temple halls with deities of Sri Radha and Krishna, Sri Krishna and Balarama, Sri Chaitanya and Nityananda and his divine grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of Iskcon, will be the central structures of the temple.
Krishna Leela theme park: At the base of the structure will be this sprawling theme park with various rides and attractions that have been conceived to give visitors a vivid experience of Lord Krishna’s leelas as described in ancient texts like Srimad Bhagavatam.
Forest theme park: A replica of the 12 forests of Vraja will be created.
Temple Tower: From the ground level, a capsule elevator will rise up through the temple core, taking visitors to the viewing gallery at 700 feet.
Construction: A team of more than 25 specialist consultants from all over the world is working on this project.
The world’s foremost structural design firm, Thornton Tomasetti, is doing the structural design of the project. One of the important structural, design and construction considerations of the project is that the building should stand for at least a thousand years.
The firm RWDI of Canada, who has done the same for the Burj Khalifa, is carrying out the wind tunnel design. The temple structure is being designed for an ultimate wind load of 226 km/hr. Cyclone Hudhud which wreaked major devastation in Andhra Pradesh, touched a peak speed of 185 km/hr for a one minute gust.
IIT Roorkee has been entrusted with carrying out a site specific seismic study to ascertain the expected seismic activity at the temple location.
The temple building will have more than 40 lifts. Of these, six will be high-speed lifts, taking people up to the viewing gallery at the top of the tower. These high-speed lifts are designed for a speed of 8 metres/second. The Burj Khalifa has lifts that operate at 10 metres/second.
This temple will probably be the first temple in the world to have a state-of-the-art fire and life safety system.
The temple will be built for environmental sustainability by adopting the LEED Gold standards for ecological construction. These standards include optimal usage of electricity with equipment that use minimal power like LED lights and strategies like automatically dimming lights that change luminance according to ambient conditions. The materials of construction and the management of different kinds of waste are all aspects of environment friendliness that are being actively integrated into the structure from the stage of very design.
Vrindavan Chandrodaya Mandir is a skyscraper building being constructed with diligent attention to intricate details for bringing to life a magnificent monument that will utilise the best of the present to proclaim the timeless glory of Lord Krishna for generations a thousand years into the future.
