"If your heart is in the right place, everything else will fall into place," said the Rinpoche, who raised more than $3 million to build the vermilion-painted building topped by shimmering gold roofs.
Covered in green and white tiles – depicting a naked, pregnant Julie – with a gold roof, the lavish interior features a double-height living room lined with decorative timber panelling and Perry's brightly coloured tapestries detailing Julie's life.
But a few miles outside the city limits is a 350-year-old Buddhist monastery with a gold roof that glints in the sun, its brightness a stark contrast to the crumbling old buildings that surround it.The Chinese army bombed this monastery in the 1950s; it only reopened in 1981, and building work continues.
In progress are the Les Arts Gstaad concert hall in Switzerland; the International Center of Art and Culture in Liège, Belgium; a curvilinear reconstruction of the Jean-Bouin stadium in Paris; and a bilevel pavilion with a floating gold roof to house the Islamic Arts galleries at the Louvre, a collaboration with the architect Mario Bellini.
Guidebooks will point you to Sertri Gompa and Kirti Gompa for a visit, and even if you have missed the intricate architecture on the inside, its red and gold roofs shimmering in the sunset will leave you with a profound impression.
He was listening to a song about love and looking out his window at the temple, with its gold roof, the Himalayas behind it, and enormous birds circling.
An architectural baptismal ring from the mid-6th century A.D., its gold pyramidal roof crowned by a cabochon garnet, is a relic of Merovingian Gaul's Christian society.
But after entering the building and seeing views of the Flatiron Building, the New York Life Building with its gold pyramid roof, and the MetLife Clock Tower that "not many people have had the opportunity to do, it was just clear" that residential condos were the way to go, he said.
To get there, take a cab south on Park Avenue, so you can ride through its glass canyon (which includes such modernist classics as the Seagram Building and Lever House) and view the Helmsley Building's gold leaf roof, and the Met Life Building behind it.
The designs of many public buildings are based on traditional Chinese structures; the National Concert Hall and the National Theatre refer to traditional Chinese palaces, with gold glazed roof tiles and Chinese red colonnades.
