Wat Buddharangsi is a Theraveda Buddhist temple, in the Thai tradition, located in Homestead, just south of Miami. It was built in 1982 to house a congregation that has been around since 1979, and it continues to expand with the South Florida Thai-American community and with an increasing number of non-Thai visitors. Visitors from many backgrounds have described the area as a peaceful and beautiful oasis in the fast-paced Miami metro, a place to meditate or just appreciate the unique grounds. The temple welcomes anyone with an interest in Buddhism and also offers a variety of religious and non-religious events.

The centerpiece of the temple is a 5-ton, 23-foot tall Buddha statue. It’s made mostly of brass but also contains copper, silver, and gold. Visitors can place a gold leaf on the Buddha’s head as a prayer for wisdom, or on the heart as a prayer for love or good health. The statue is named “PHRABUDDHADHAMMACHINARAJ” and is based on a statue with the same name in Phitsanulok, Thailand. It was created for Miami’s Thai Buddhist community in 1997 before the temple was built.

The central Buddha statue and mediation space at Wat Buddharangsi. Photo: savoryexposure, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

A Growing Community

The complex also includes modest apartments for about six monks who live there at a given time. Visitors can ask them for blessings, and they perform marriages and other religious ceremonies for the community.

The Jade Buddha at Wat Buddharangsi. Photo: Douglas Jay Benson, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

It was designed by Nopporn Poochareon, a Thai-American general contractor and owner of Thai restaurants in Miami. Man of the materials, as well as some of the workers, were sourced from Thailand to keep the temple true to the Thai tradition.

Who doesn’t love love? In 2002, married artists Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen built the Cupid’s Span installation to honor romance. Located in Rincon Park along the Embracdero, the piece shows partial images of a bow and arrow lodged in the ground. The 60-foot sculpture is made of fiberglass and steel, making it a sturdy and long-standing piece of construction.

The Meaning

For Cupid’s Span, it’s essential to know why the work of art was created. Because San Fransisco is known as the home port of Eros, Oldenburg and Bruggen saw fit to create a monument honoring this space of love and creativity. The meaning relates to Cupid, the mythological god of desire, attraction, and affection. His counterpart is Eros, signifying that Cupid’s Span unites all aspects of the myth into one giant artwork. There is also a mythological account of Eros shooting an arrow into the Earth to bring fertility. All in all, Cupid’s Span is a mythological reimagining of ancient ideas and principals.

The Inspiration

Oldenberg and Bruggen also chose to make this piece because of its similarity to the Golden Gate Bridge. While the meaning behind the work of art is more transcendental, the physical component is meant to emulate and pay tribute to the city’s famous bridge. Both works of steel and both suspended in their own way, Cupid’s Span and the Golden Gate Bridge represent the golden ideals of the city and how those can manifest when people come together to create something amazing.

Located in Brackenridge Park, the San Antonio Japanese Tea Garden opened in an abandoned limestone rock quarry at the beginning of the 20th century. Also known as Chinese Tea Gardens, Chinese Sunken Garden Gate and Chinese Tea Garden Gate, it is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

At the entrance to the garden, the artist Dionicio Rodriguez replicated a Japanese Torii gate in his unique style of concrete construction. In 1919, the local Japanese-American artist Kimi Eizo Jingu moved to the garden. In 1926, they opened the Bamboo Room, a place where lunches and tea were served. Kimi lived in the garden, maintained and raised eight children. He died in 1938 and in 1941 the family was evicted with the rise of the anti-Japanese sentiment of World War II.

For many years, the garden was a target of vandalism. For that reason, public and private sources had to fund a renovation project that cost $1.6 million. The restored garden included stone bridges, ponds, and a waterfall, as well as shaded walkways. The work was completed in 2011 and it includes a restaurant that serves lunches as the Jingu family did in the 1930s. Also, there is an amphitheater called The Sunken Garden with capacity for 6,000 spectators. The site has been designated a Texas Civil Engineering Landmark, a Registered Texas Historic Landmark, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Cover Picture by Brownings on Wikipedia. Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)