This article provides two ‘readings’ of the Vedanta temple of San Francisco to understand the complex process of world making by Hindu religious preachers in the USA during the first decade of the twentieth century. On the one hand is the visible world of shared meanings and practices and on the other hand is the haptic domain navigated by individuals in embodied ways. These two ways of knowing the building are intertwined; they play against each other, and yet they serve different purposes. The first reading explains the material configuration of place and the relationship between the various spaces and their uses. The second reading examines the spatial choreography and human experience of using this building. The example of the Vedanta temple shows us that a building is not a neutral container where inhabitants play out their lives as they wish. Instead, buildings are actively engaged in the way that events, experiences and memory are shaped.