Heaven in Proportion: Lutah Maria Riggs’ Hidden Masterpiece

A Sacred Space for All: Temple Beyond Boundaries
 

Tucked into the quiet hills of Montecito, California, the Vedanta Temple emerges like a secret sanctuary for both visitors and spiritual seekers. As one walks along stone pathways shaded by native oaks and chaparral, the temple gradually reveals itself, inviting all into an atmosphere of peace and reflection. Low rooflines, natural materials, and subtle geometry contribute to a presence that feels both ancient and distinctly modern. Designed by Lutah Maria Riggs in 1956, the temple is a rare example of sacred architecture that blends philosophical depth, environmental sensitivity, and architectural restraint.

Though largely overlooked by architectural historians and scholars of modernism, Lutah Maria Riggs’s design for the Vedanta Temple reveals a compelling and under-recognized strand of modernist religious architecture. Its modest scale and inward focus have often placed it outside mainstream narratives of modernism, which tend to emphasize secularism, monumentalism and traditional Western church architecture. Riggs’s work, in contrast, reveals an alternative architectural language that bridges spiritual philosophy with the ecological and cultural particularities of the California landscape.

This article explores the contributions of Vedanta Temple to our understanding of sacred modernism in two important ways. First, it is an example that broadens our focus beyond Mainline Protestantism to include religious spaces shaped by Asian philosophies and immigrant communities. The temple reflects a larger historical pattern closely associated with the West Coast, where alternative spiritual forms followed new sources of immigration from Asia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Second, the temple exemplifies a broader 20th-century American shift from institutional religion to individual spirituality.[1] In this context, sacred architecture moved away from liturgical, enclosed religious settings toward more open, contemplative spaces integrated with the natural world. The Vedanta Temple is a microcosm of this transformation, offering a modernist expression not just of design innovation, but also of spiritual openness and cultural pluralism.

Lutah Maria Riggs: A Modernist Beyond Convention

Lutah Maria Riggs (1896–1980) was the first woman licensed to practice architecture in Santa Barbara. Working in a male-dominated profession during the early 20th century, Riggs built a remarkable career based on talent, adaptability, and deep contextual awareness. Early in her professional life, she worked closely with renowned architect George Washington Smith, eventually becoming his chief draftsperson. After his death, she established her own firm, an uncommon and bold step for a woman at that time.[2]

Her architectural philosophy was rooted in an understanding of context that was not only physical, but also cultural and spiritual. Unlike many of her modernist contemporaries who embraced strict minimalism or international styles, Riggs developed a personal vocabulary that emphasized harmony, proportion, and subtle beauty. Her work reflects the softer side of modernism: one that respected tradition, embraced local materials, and remained open to global influences.[3]

Whether designing estates, public buildings, or sacred spaces, Riggs brought a rigor and elegance to her work. A secular example of her characteristic approach is the Blaksley Library at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, designed in 1941, where she used local stone and simple, earth-toned materials to create a structure that blends seamlessly with the surrounding landscape.[4] Like the Vedanta Temple, Blaksley Library reveals her sensitivity to place and her commitment to designs that feel both rooted and transcendent.

The Vedanta Temple in Santa Barbara, completed fifteen years later, stands out as one of her most spiritually charged commissions. She approached the design not just as an architectural task but also as a meditative act. Her ability to integrate the philosophy of Vedanta into the architectural form—through simplicity, spatial clarity, and natural harmony transformed the temple into a quiet masterpiece. The result is a sacred space that encourages personal reflection and spiritual connection, capturing the complementarity of Vedanta philosophy and architectural modernism.[5]

Vedanta and Sacred Space: A Philosophy in Built Form

Vedanta is one of the oldest branches of Hindu philosophy. It emerged from the spiritual teachings of ancient India found in the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita. At its core, Vedanta teaches all religions, despite their differences, are simply different paths leading to the same ultimate truth. It offers a non-dual view of the world, suggesting that the divine and the self are not separate, but one. It emphasizes unity, self-realization, and the idea that people carry the divine within them. This philosophy invites people to look beyond religious labels and see the shared spiritual essence that connects all human beings. In Vedanta, recognizing one’s inner divinity is the key to spiritual growth.[6]

Vedanta’s journey to the United States began in the late 19th century, when Swami Vivekananda introduced it at the 1893 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago.[7] Building on this foundation, Swami Prabhavananda – a monk of the Ramakrishna Order – founded the Vedanta Society of Southern California in 1930. His goal was to make Vedanta accessible to Western audiences, particularly in California, where openness to Eastern ideas was growing. The Santa Barbara branch of the Vedanta Society eventually established as a retreat center, a quiet refuge for meditation and spiritual study that appealed to seekers, writers, artists, and intellectuals drawn to Vedanta’s message of inner peace and universal spirituality.

In the 1940s and early 1950s, members of the Vedanta Society in Santa Barbara met for worship and study in a modest home that served as their temporary center. Over time, the growing congregation and the desire for a dedicated spiritual space made the need for a purpose-built temple increasingly clear. The Society envisioned a space that reflected Vedanta’s core values: humility, serenity, and universality. In 1956, the Society turned to Riggs – one of California’s most respected architects and a longtime Santa Barbara resident – to bring this vision to life.[8]

Riggs embraced the commission with sensitivity, envisioning the temple not as a grand or monumental structure, but as a true retreat – intimate, inviting, and spiritually grounded. By placing spiritual philosophy at the center of her architectural vision, Riggs created a temple that diverged from historic religious precedent in order to be universally welcoming. Unlike traditional Vedanta or Hindu temples in India – which often feature ornate carvings, axial plans, towering shikharas (spires), and sanctums aligned to cosmic principles – Riggs’s design avoided symbolic grandeur and ritual hierarchy. [insert 135402/46912/1905] Instead, it expressed the Vedantic message of unity and self-realization through the values of architectural modernism: simplicity, balance, and spatial clarity.[9]

Riggs carefully sited the temple within the hillside, allowing the building to feel gently nestled into the natural landscape rather than imposed upon it. The temple is oriented to capture natural light, frame views, and promote ventilation. Its low profile nestles into the hillside, respecting the land rather than dominating it. In this way, the temple resonates with the modernist ideal of architecture as a mediator between human beings and nature.[10] The building also opens itself up to nature, with verandas, shaded walkways, and garden paths by native oaks and chaparral, creating a sense of quiet transition from the outside world to a contemplative inner space. This approach reflects Vedanta’s inward focus and harmony with nature.[11]

The building itself is modest in scale, with low rooflines and human-scaled proportions that avoid any sense of dominance or hierarchy. Riggs chose simple materials like redwood, local stone, and white plaster, which age naturally and harmonize with the landscape with qualities that evoke humility and timelessness. The entrance is understated yet clearly legible, leading into a series of spaces that unfold intuitively. There is no grand threshold or imposing doorway, but rather a soft, seamless entry sequence that reinforces the temple’s welcoming spirit.

Inside, the space is devoid of religious iconography. Instead, the focus is on simple and serene space, with restrained detailing, natural materials, and soft natural light. The proportions are carefully balanced –neither compressed nor cavernous – encouraging stillness and individual reflection. The wood beams are exposed and there is little ornamentation. It is not a place for an assembly of believers but for individual meditation, prayer, and small gatherings. Every architectural choice from the low ceilings to the intimate entryways invites inwardness.[12] Riggs’s use of symmetry, rhythm, and subtle geometry quietly shapes the experience without calling attention to itself. [13]

Modernism Beneath the Surface: Proportion, Nature and Riggs’s Language

At first glance, the Vedanta Temple may seem traditional or even Revivalist, with its white plaster walls, redwood beams, and low-pitched rooflines that echo the vernacular forms of California missions and Asian temples. This impression is perhaps unsurprising, given that much of Riggs’s early work focused on Spanish Colonial Revival homes – a dominant architectural style in Santa Barbara during the 1920s and 1930s, which she mastered while working with George Washington Smith. Her revivalist background informed her sensitivity to proportion, material, and historical resonance, even as she transitioned toward a more modernist language in her later career.

In her design for the Vedanta Temple, Riggs drew on an eclectic variety of Japanese, Chinese, and Indian architectural traditions before filtering them through a modernist lens.[14] The wide eaves, sliding doors, and strong horizontal lines clearly echo traditional Japanese houses. From Buddhist temples, she borrowed a sense of calm spatial rhythm and contemplative openness – qualities often achieved through symmetrical layouts, broad platforms, and framed views of nature. These elements give such temples their quiet, meditative presence and enduring stability. Rather than reproducing these features literally, Riggs abstracted them into a more universal architectural language – creating a building that suggests multiple traditions without mimicking any one of them.

Distilling essential spatial and aesthetic principles from global traditions is part of the modernist spirit. Modernist architects often looked beyond the West for inspiration – Frank Lloyd Wright, for instance, abstracted patterns from Japanese screens into his stained glass and lighting designs, while Richard Neutra's residential work integrated elements like open plans, sliding panels, and seamless indoor-outdoor transitions influenced by classical Japanese villa architecture.[15] Riggs’s work, while embodying Vedanta philosophy, further demonstrates that modernist commitment to abstraction could be a spiritual path that led beyond parochial boundaries of place, time, or style.[16]

Sacred and Endangered: Preserving Spiritual Modernism

Across the country, many sacred spaces face uncertain futures. Declining attendance, rising maintenance costs, and a lack of public awareness have placed countless religious buildings at risk. Modernist sacred architecture is especially vulnerable because of those who dismiss it as too plain, too recent, or too abstract to qualify as “historic.” The Vedanta Temple in Santa Barbara challenges these assumptions. It offers a clear example of how architecture can embody spiritual ideas in modern form—through restraint, proportion, and connections to nature.[17]

Although the temple remains active and well-maintained by the Vedanta Society of Southern California, it is not immune to broader environmental pressures or the passage of time. Like many spiritual centers rooted in contemplative traditions, it depends on a small and aging community of practitioners and caretakers.[18] Its remote hillside location and understated appearance make it easy to overlook, even among locals.[19] Yet those who continue to care for it—including members of the Vedanta Society, local preservation advocates, and cultural institutions such as the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation—have recognized its cultural significance.[20] In its modest beauty and universal spirit, the Vedanta Temple remains as meaningful today as it was in 1956. It bridges East and West, past and present, nature and spirit. It reminds us that modernism is not confined to steel and glass—it can also be found in wood, stone, silence, and soul.

The temple tells a rare and powerful story—one shaped by a pioneering woman architect, guided by Eastern philosophy, and grounded in environmental sensitivity. Riggs’s design offers a vision of modernism that is inclusive, meditative, and deeply humane—qualities that deserve not only preservation but also a more central place in America’s architectural and cultural narrative.[21]

Citations

[1] Diana L. Eck, A New Religious America: How a “Christian Country” Has Become the World’s Most Religiously Diverse Nation (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), 101-104; Charles S. White, Eastern Religious Tradition and America Spirituality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 189-192.  

[2] David Gebhard, Lutah Maria Riggs: A Woman in Architecture, 1921–1980 (Santa Barbara: Capra Press, 1992), 9–15.

[3] Catherine Zipf, “Lutah Maria Riggs,” in Pioneering Women of American Architecture, Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, (accessed June 9, 2025).

[4] Gebhard, Lutah Maria Riggs, 55–57.

[5] António R. Santos, Vedanta in America: The Story of the Santa Barbara Society (Santa Barbara: Vedanta Press, 2013), 71–73.

[6] Eliot Deutsch, Advaita Vedanta: A Philosophical Reconstruction (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1969), 15–17.

[7] Aditya Saha, “Swami Vivekananda and the 1893 Parliament,” Journal of American Religious Thought 12, no. 1 (2019): 45–67.

[8] David Gebhard, Lutah Maria Riggs: A Woman in Architecture, 1921–1980 (Santa Barbara: Capra Press, 1992), 76–78.

[9] David Gebhard, Lutah Maria Riggs: A Woman in Architecture, 1921–1980 (Santa Barbara: Capra Press, 1992), 77–79.

[10] Henry Russell Hitchcock, Modern Architecture: Romanticism and Reintegration (New York: Da Capo Press, 1994), 98–99.

[11] António R. Santos, Vedanta in America: The Story of the Santa Barbara Society (Santa Barbara: Vedanta Press, 2013), 44–46.

[12] Paul Heyer, Architecture and Meaning: The Universal Language of Architecture (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1993), 162.

[13] Catherine Zipf, “Lutah Maria Riggs,” in Pioneering Women of American Architecture, Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, (accessed June 19, 2025).

[14] Bruno Zevi, The Modern Language of Architecture (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1978), 83.

[15] Kevin Nute, Frank Lloyd Wright and Japan: The Role of Traditional Japanese Art and Architecture in the Work of Frank Lloyd Wright (London: Chapman & Hall, 1993), 112–115.

[16] José Parla and Ilka Ruby, eds., Spiritual Modernism: Architecture, Philosophy and Faith in the Twentieth Century (Berlin: Ruby Press, 2020), 44–47. 

[17] Dell Upton, 'Architecture in the United States' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 186.

[18]“Santa Barbara Temple,” Vedanta Society of Southern California, accessed June 12, 2025 – noting ongoing worship, classes, and retreat activity.

[19] Emily Bills, “Vedanta Temple,” SAH Archipedia, last accessed June 20, 2025.
[20] “About Us,” Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation (SBTHP), accessed June 22, 2025.

[21] Lutah Maria Riggs Society, 'Biography of Lutah Maria Riggs,' accessed June 8, 2025.

About the Author

Sai Gowri Ravikumar is currently pursuing her Dual Master's Degree in Heritage Conservation and Landscape Architecture & Urbanism at University of Southern California. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Architecture and with a passion for heritage conservation, she finds immense joy in learning about historic structures, artifacts, and traditions that tell stories, connect us to our roots, and shape our identity. Her research interests reside in the importance of historic preservation in sustainable urbanism and the effects of globalization on cultural diversity. According to her, heritage is like a bridge that connects the past, the present, and the future. By saving and honoring old buildings, traditions, and cultures, we help to create a more sustainable and connected world for everyone.