Scientology’s New “Super Power Building”

Architizer News

Scientology’s New “Super Power Building”

January 10, 2012

Sixth floor schematic of the Super Power Building; All images via The Village Voice

That is the floor plan for the Church of Scientology’s new $145 million training center in Clearwater, Florida. Several hundred files documenting the plans and construction of the awesomely-named “Super Power Building” were leaked to the Village Voice, which has posted them in an in-depth virtual tour of the campus. After numerous setbacks and extensive fundraising, the complex, which the church calls the “Flag Mecca,” is set to finally open within the year, with the expressed purpose of instilling and fostering superhuman abilities in members using sleek retro-futuristic machines encoded with NASA technology, including a time machine, an anti-gravity simulator and an “endocrine states” capsule (think Darth Vader’s meditation chamber). Fitting, then, that the architecture is reminiscent of the X-Mansion, clad in a revivalist facade with matching entryway and wood paneled study rooms and dormitories, behind which lies the hidden technological core of the enterprise. Continue.

The atrium

The building contains 889 rooms, 2 museums, a library, 42 bathrooms, 2 kitchens, a 1,140-seat dining room, and an full-size indoor running track. The grandiose atrium is saturated by the reflective glow of marble and bronze surfaces, with large sculptures lined along the glazed west wall that illustrate the basic Dianetics and Scientology concepts. The room, which includes a cafe and bookstore, leads to the main “org” (chapel), a spacious longitudinal room with arched seating and frosted windows engraved with the ruminations of founder L. Ron Hubbard. Although the chapel will be used for Sunday services, the teachings and rigor of Scientology must be communicated on a personal level, with members convening with auditors in small rooms.

The main chapel

The celebrity audit room, reserved for the likes of Tom Cruise and John Travolta

Various administrative offices and reception rooms are distributed along the second, third, and fourth floors, while the fifth floor is reserved for the storage of the center’s mysterious gadgetry. Here, members with unusual progression readings will have their “perceptics” (sensory systems) adjusted by a series of devices ranging from the “pain station” and the “oiliness table” to the aforementioned “endocrine states chamber.” It’s likely that most members, including the privileged Hollywood ones, will never see the machines in action, as they will be reserved for only the rarest circumstances. Which has prompted many to speculate that the devices don’t actually work and, rather, functioned as advertising tools for church leader David Miscavige’s massive fundraising campaigns. You don’t say!