Nan Tien Temple

Nan Tien Temple — 'Paradise of the Southern Sky' — opened in 1995 as the largest Buddhist temple in the Southern Hemisphere, built by the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist order from Taiwan at a cost of over $50 million. Architect Brewster Hjorth designed the complex to accommodate thousands of worshippers and visitors, with an eight-level pagoda housing shrines and meditation rooms for up to 7,000 people. The main shrine contains a jade Buddha and thousands of smaller Buddha statues lining the walls. In 2015, the Nan Tien Institute opened adjacent to the temple — a government-accredited university offering degrees in Buddhist studies, arts, and health, making it one of the few Buddhist universities outside Asia. The temple's vegetarian restaurant, tea house, and meditation classes draw over 300,000 visitors annually to what was once a hillside paddock in Berkeley, south of Wollongong.