Spiritualizing the suburbs: new religious architecture in suburban­London­and­Vancouver­

Introduction On­ July­ 25,­ 2010,­ a­ spectacular­ new­ religious­ building,­ the­ Thrangu­ Tibetan­ Monastery, celebrated its grand opening in Richmond, a suburban municipality south of Vancouver in British Columbia

Heralded­ by­ its­ founders,­ as­ “a­miniature­ Tibet”­ and­ the­ “first­ traditionalstyle” Tibetan monastery in Canada, this elaborate, purpose-built place of worship­joined­a­diverse­range­of­other­religious­buildings­along­the­Number­5­ Road on the edge of the city, part of a multicultural suburban landscape known popularly as “Highway to Heaven” (see Dwyer et al. forthcoming). In this chapter, I discuss the construction of the Thrangu Tibetan Monastery alongside two other recent, purpose-built, religious buildings constructed by diasporic migrant populations in the suburbs of London: the Jain Deraser in Potters Bar, and the Salaam Centre, currently under construction in Harrow. I argue that, in common with a range of recently constructed religious buildings in Europe and North America, these buildings are evidence of the ways in which networks and trajectories of transnational migration are shaping new geographies of faith in suburbia (Dwyer­et­al.­2013a).­Such­buildings­offer­a­novel­means­to­analyze­how­the­contemporary city is “spiritualized” involving a creative materialization of religious space by transnational migrant religious communities, which, unlike many new migrant communities, are located in the suburban fringe rather than in the center of the city.