With the completion of Ismaili Center Houston, the city has a beautiful new building to add to its growing inventory of contemporary architectural marvels.

Under construction since 2022, the building formally opened on Friday, November 7, and is slated to open to the public for events and drop-in visits beginning Saturday, December 13. Houston Mayor John Whitmire attended the debut, along with His Highness Prince Rahim Aga Khan V, who, following the death of his father earlier this year, became the 50th imam and spiritual leader of the world’s Shia Ismaili Muslims.

“The relationships between Ismailis and the communities in which they live have always been grounded in understanding and common purpose. Today, we honor that tradition, extending the hand of friendship to all, regardless of background or faith,” the prince said. “This building may be called an Ismaili Center, but it is not here for Ismailis only. It is for all Houstonians to use; a place open to all who seek knowledge, reflection, and dialogue.”

That spirit of openness and dialogue is reflected not only in the center’s mission, but in its architecture.

The Ismaili Center Houston, the first of its kind in the United States, is one of seven centers built and funded by the Aga Khan worldwide (others are in London, England; Burnaby, British Columbia; Lisbon, Portugal; Dushanbe, Tajikistan; Dubai, UAE; and Toronto, Ontario). His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan IV, who died February 4 at the age of 88, purchased the site’s 11 acres at Montrose Boulevard and Allen Parkway in 2006. The team of engineers, architects, and landscape architects, chosen from a 2019 competition, has since imagined and brought to life a building with gardens steeped in global Muslim traditions and executed with contemporary Texas flair.

Beyond its symbolic importance, the building’s design responds directly to its challenging site and Houston’s environment. Located on a long, narrow plot at the crest of a 200-year flood plain, the building houses a jamatkhana—a prayer hall where women and men attend services together—plus meeting and event spaces, art exhibition rooms, a black-box theater, and a café. Farshid Moussavi, the design architect and an Iranian-born Brit, takes special care to tap into the Muslim world’s holistic approach to architecture. “Order, geometry, structure, playing with light—and they all have nature and gardens,” she says. “We are using that heritage and tradition in a contemporary way.”

That harmony between built and natural environment extends outdoors, where the landscape plays just as central a role as the structure itself. Roughly nine of the site’s 11 acres are devoted entirely to courtyards, fountains, reflecting pools, and gardens, including a long stretch of verdant grounds on the building’s north side. Designed by landscape architect Thomas Woltz and his team at Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, this section serves both as flood control and as a meditative space. A two-story underground garage beneath the reflecting pool on the West Dallas Street side of the building holds 600 cars, providing ample parking for visitors.

“Our mission was to [design a building that] would bring people together,” says Moussavi, who teaches architecture at Harvard University. “This will be a place for people to socialize, to listen to music, attend a wedding, or a birthday party. It can adapt to the needs of the moment.”

Clad in slabs of natural stone cut to create both pattern and texture, Moussavi’s three-part building is filled with natural materials, including steel, concrete, stone, and wood. An exterior screen, for example, is perforated with triangular shapes, giving the illusion that the building is living and breathing, while a combination of interior materials that could easily be cold and off-putting are instead warm and inviting.

Geometric motifs loom large throughout the building and gardens in the shapes of steel posts, benches covered in triangular cushions, and cuts in poured concrete floors. Huge glass panels that shimmer in the sunlight are laminated with metallic silks—silver in the lobbies and gold in a meeting room, which complements the stained-wood floors.

Woltz, whose firm previously reinvented Memorial Park with tunnels along Memorial Drive that are topped with Gulf Coast native prairie, also brought Texas’s many ecosystems to the Ismaili Center’s gardens. On the upper level, gardens bordered by West Dallas and Montrose streets represent the westernmost Trans-Pecos part of Texas, with a stunning combination of thick paddle cactus and mesquite trees. Meanwhile, the Blackland Prairie area focuses on flowering plants and small fountains.

The attention to the environment extends to the landscape itself. Designed to withstand complete submersion during heavy rain events, the Gulf Coast prairie section is the most durable. This area of the garden was installed first and endured Hurricane Beryl as its drainage system’s initial test. Woltz said he watched from afar as construction cameras captured the progression from dry ground to standing water, which receded within 24 hours.

An imposing concrete wall along Montrose Boulevard works as a sound barrier, but the fig ivy planted at its base will soon grow and transform it into a lush space. Likewise, the café’s outdoor patio features rows of newly planted live oaks that, in five to 10 years, are expected to form a canopy of leafy shade, he says. It’s a final reminder that even the most utilitarian features were designed with long-term beauty in mind.