Throughout history, no mythical building has sparked more debate and speculation about its appearance than Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. According to ancient texts, this legendary structure was built around 950 BC on the sacred mound where God is said to have created Adam. The temple stood for approximately 400 years before being destroyed by invading Babylonian forces. However, apart from some conflicting descriptions in Biblical texts written centuries after the temple's destruction, no archaeological evidence exists to prove this grand building ever actually stood.

Despite this lack of concrete proof, for more than two thousand years, countless architects, archaeologists, and scholars have engaged in heated debates about the temple's design. They have argued over its exact dimensions, theorized about the style of its columns, and disputed the specific features of its entrance. This mythical structure, also referred to as the First Temple, has served as inspiration for numerous real buildings throughout history, from a Renaissance royal palace in Spain to a modern megachurch in Brazil, and even the interior designs of Masonic lodges worldwide – all based entirely on imagination.

"It really draws out the batshit crazy," says Argentinian artist Pablo Bronstein, standing before his massive new drawings depicting what Solomon's Temple and its contents might have looked like. "It has been used as a cipher for pretty much every crazy projection of power and self-delusion for 2,500 years. I find it totally fascinating – particularly as the whole thing is entirely fabricated."

Bronstein's artistic work has consistently explored the provocative nature of architectural imagery. He has previously created satirical pieces about Britain's pseudo-Georgian housing developments and produced elaborate depictions of hell, which he envisioned as a showcase city filled with gaudy monuments that would make even the most tasteless dictator proud. However, the subject matter, location, and timing of his latest provocative project couldn't be more politically charged.

Bronstein's speculative drawings of Judaism's holiest site are currently displayed at Waddesdon Manor, an extravagant French-style chateau constructed in Buckinghamshire during the 1890s. The manor served as a weekend retreat for the Rothschild family, an enormously wealthy Jewish banking dynasty that played a crucial role in the establishment of Israel. Baron Edmond de Rothschild, the French cousin of Baron Ferdinand who built Waddesdon, provided financial backing for several early settlements in Palestine and established the Palestine Jewish Colonisation Association in 1924, which was later managed by his son James, who inherited the manor.

The historical significance of the location runs even deeper. When the Balfour Declaration was drafted in 1917, expressing the British government's support for establishing a national home for Jewish people in Palestine, it was specifically addressed to Ferdinand's nephew, Walter Rothschild. Walter was an eccentric zoologist known for his unconventional behavior – he would pose riding giant tortoises, travel in carriages pulled by zebras, and was also a prominent leader in the Zionist movement.

A permanent exhibition at Waddesdon, located in a room adjacent to Bronstein's show, celebrates the Rothschild family's deep connections with Israel. The display chronicles the family's financial support for constructing major Israeli buildings, including the Knesset building (seat of the Israeli parliament), the Supreme Court building, and most recently, the National Library. The National Library was designed by renowned Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron in the distinctive shape of a sweeping stone ski jump. Architectural models of these impressive buildings are showcased in transparent display cases, presented with the same reverence as the priceless antique treasures found throughout the rest of the manor.

"I became fascinated by the construction of Jewish identity in the 19th century," explains Bronstein, who was born in Argentina, raised in London, and describes himself as a "diehard atheist Jew." To this lavish display of patronage in the Holy Land, Bronstein's elaborate drawings add an imaginary additional commission. In what he calls a bold act of architectural role-playing, the artist has inserted himself into the minds of two competitors in a fictional version of the Prix de Rome, a prestigious prize for architecture students in 19th-century Paris, as they compete to recreate Solomon's Temple according to their own vision.

This new work, which took several years to complete, was commissioned as part of a broader research project examining Jewish country houses. The project appears to have triggered both deep curiosity and skepticism in the artist regarding his own cultural heritage. "As nationalisms develop in the 19th century, particularly in Germany, Judaism begins to develop its idea of a body of people that are somehow genetically connected to the ancient Middle East," Bronstein explains. "They start to see Jerusalem not as an abstract idea, the way that Muslims look at Mecca, but as a reconstructible place of belonging, tied to a kind of orientalist architectural fantasy."

Bronstein's mesmerizing drawings illustrate what this fantasy might have looked like if taken to its extreme. Created with painstaking detail using pen and ink, then beautifully colored with layers of acrylic wash (with assistance from two recent architecture graduate students), these images represent magnificently grandiose projections of that romanticized 19th-century longing. The drawings present two competing designs, shown in precisely detailed elevations, cross-sections, and facade studies for reconstructing the temple. Both designs are wild combinations of architectural styles, freely sampling from the richly decorated catalog of Asian antiquity, medieval and Gothic revival, Baroque, and Art Deco elements with enthusiastic abandon.

On one wall hangs Bronstein's version of the temple that he describes as "vaudeville beaux arts," with an interior that glows with the gilded glamour of a New Orleans casino. Visitors can admire the spiraling Solomonic columns at the entrance, borrowed from Bernini's baldacchino at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, and the illusionistic domes that float above the Ark, influenced by Alessandro Antonelli's Mole Antonelliana in Turin, which was originally designed as a synagogue. "It's the temple as a sort of gin palace," says Bronstein – though he acknowledges it's an architecturally impressive one nonetheless.

On the opposite wall is a more subdued version of the temple, featuring interior wooden paneling reminiscent of the type of synagogue one might find in Golders Green, north London – not far from where Bronstein grew up in Neasden. This design also incorporates elements from Henri Labrouste's Bibliothèque de Saint Geneviève in Paris, along with stunning blue lapis lazuli walls representing the celestial realm in a medieval style, following the approach of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, the famous reconstructor of historic architecture. The design creates an intoxicating mixture, made even more striking by the colorful facade, which depicts the heads of Moses, David, and Solomon as blue-bearded gargoyles above the entrance, plus a relief of God flanked by sphinxes.

Interestingly, Bronstein's flamboyant fantasies aren't dramatically different from what was actually being designed by 19th-century architects. "There's a good amount of scholarship about what a temple would have actually looked like if it was built in the 10th century BC," says Bronstein. "And it's got nothing to do with monotheism." He believes it's much more likely that, had the temple actually been constructed during the time period claimed in the Bible, it would have been "a pantheistic riot, full of different representations of the divine" – similar to a comparable structure that has survived in Ain Dara, Syria, built in 1300 BC, which is "just full of goblins, basically."

As if these elaborate temple designs weren't enough, Bronstein has also created drawings of the Ark of the Covenant – depicted as a gilded medieval reliquary chest topped with a cushion where God is said to have rested his feet – and the temple's menorah, imagined as a twirling Rococo candelabrum whose branches emerge from a Chinese-style grotto. Drawings from the Waddesdon archive displayed in an adjacent room help provide context for the project and demonstrate that Bronstein's extravagant fantasies aren't too far removed from what was actually being designed by the 19th-century architects who inspired him.

Alarmingly, these designs also aren't too different from what some people still hope to see constructed in Jerusalem today. The Third Temple movement continues to campaign for rebuilding the original temple on Temple Mount, one of the most disputed sites on Earth. This location is known as Haram al-Sharif in the Muslim world and is the site of the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, two of Islam's holiest sites. One can only hope that Third Temple enthusiasts don't misinterpret Bronstein's drawings as actual blueprints.

Bronstein began working on these drawings long before war broke out in the region following Hamas's attack on October 7, 2023. When asked whether Israel's devastating bombardment of Gaza has changed his perspective, he responds: "The work hasn't changed. But the war has changed my relationship to Judaism. It made me really question the fact that we all get instinctively bullied into the idea that we have a genetic, cosmic link to the Holy Land. It's genuinely a 19th-century construct and it's total rubbish."

Pablo Bronstein: The Temple of Solomon and Its Contents is on display at Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire until November 2.