Is the Provo Temple . . . Ugly?

[theplains]

23 hours ago, bluebell said:

I love the symbolism of the design.  I think the design itself is really ugly.  It's very typical of 1970s architecture, which is most of its problem since that era has not aged well no matter what the subject matter. 

The MTC is likewise not very architecturally impressive.  It looks more utilitarian than modern, like low-income housing but in a nicer area than we are used to seeing it.

Is there any symbolism with losing Moroni on the top?

[2BizE]

I’m going with ugly.  

[the narrator]

Well now future gamers will have no idea what they are encountering in Horizon: Zero Dawn.

[bluebell]

53 minutes ago, theplains said:

Is there any symbolism with losing Moroni on the top?

Not that I'm aware of.  

[the narrator]

17 hours ago, the narrator said:

Well now future gamers will have no idea what they are encountering in Horizon: Zero Dawn.

BTW, for those who don't know. This is, in fact, the Provo Temple in the game (set far into the future). Bridal Veil Falls is named nearby.

[mfbukowski]

On 12/1/2021 at 1:43 PM, smac97 said:

So on 11/24 the Church announced that the Provo Temple will be renovated and re-designed to look like this:

See here:

Some don't want the temple re-done:

And here:

The petition has 492 signatories.  That's . . . not a lot.

See also here: ‘Mormon Land’: In wake of Provo Temple redesign, prominent architect examines the best and worst of the most sacred LDS buildings

It's a 33-minute podcast, and I don't like listending to podcasts, so I'm hoping someone else will listen and list what this architect thinks are the good, the bad and the ugly of Latter-day Saint temples.

For me, I have real affection for the Provo Temple, particularly its original "Cloud by Day, Pillar of Fire by Night"-inspired design:

Thoughts?

Thanks,

-Smac

Typical 1950's look.

Artistic trends and their fruit are neither ugly nor beautiful, they are always just different than what we are used to, by definition.  One generation's beauty is another's ugly🧐

 

[Calm]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Artistic trends and their fruit are neither ugly nor beautiful, they are always just different than what we are used to, by definition.  One generation's beauty is another's ugly🧐

There does seem to be an inherent preference for symmetry and certain proportions…or at least there was thought to be last time I studied this.  Been awhile.  Along these lines of research:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11954693/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11430245/

 

Edited December 4, 2021 by Calm

[smac97]

By way of further discussion of temple aesthetics, here's a very nice article about the Oakland Temple: 

The Oakland California Temple is one of the Bay Area's most beautiful buildings. But the public isn’t allowed inside.

Quote

The first time I ever saw the Oakland California Temple, I thought it was some sort of Disney princess castle. At night, its whimsical spires illuminate the sky in blinding white, a glowing beacon visible from much of the Bay Area. 

As it turns out, the temple belongs to a different denomination: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as the Mormon church, but they aren't a fan of that term these days). And the fact that you can see their church from pretty much any vantage point high enough in Oakland? That’s on purpose. 

Yep.  There's always a concern about the Church "advertising" itself.  But I think some measure of "let your light so shine" is a part of the Great Commission.

Quote

Resplendent temples belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are often built near highways for the purpose of dazzling drivers with their beauty (probably a recruitment technique). The church spends a pretty penny on these temples, too — Reuters reported in 2012 that globally, its temples and meeting houses are worth an estimated $35 billion. Today, there are 170 dedicated temples around the world.

The Church's physical facilities are worth a lot, but they also cost a lot.  Purchase.  Construction.  Maintenance and repair.  And although Latter-day Saint chapel buildings can be sold (this last weekend I spent a wonderful few days with my wife at a B&B converted from a former church building: Greystone Manor in Lava Hot Springs, Idaho - definitely give it a whirl if you have the time), temples are not, as a practical matter, fungible assets.

Quote

The Oakland California Temple was actually one of the church’s earlier temples, dating back to 1962. If you ask a Latter-day Saint, they’ll tell you that back in 1924, a leader of the church visiting the area felt impressed to say that a “great white temple” would one day be built in the Oakland hills.

Two decades later, that vision began to come to fruition: the church purchased the land on which the temple sits in 1943. By 1964, construction on the 18-acre East Oakland ridge was complete. It cost $7 million to build, newspapers reported when it opened (that’s about $62 million in 2021 dollars).

Usually, temples belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints do not allow members of the public inside, aside from a brief “open house” period upon completion. So when the new East Bay church opened its doors to the public for 18 days in 1964, hundreds of thousands rushed to see inside.

At closing time on the ninth night of the open house, “the line waiting to make the 30-minute tour was four-abreast and four blocks long,” reported the Oakland Tribune at the time. Visitors were astounded by its beauty, with 360-degree views of the Bay Area.

“It’s breath-taking. It is the most beautiful thing I’ve seen from coast to coast,” gushed an East Coast transplant.

“It’s fantastically beautiful. I’m overwhelmed!” declared a Stanford freshman.

Huh.  I had no idea the Oakland Temple garnered this much attention at its inception.

Quote

On a recent Wednesday, I booked a tour of the temple, attempting to avoid a recruitment-heavy version by selecting the “Explore the Oakland Temple Grounds” tour rather than the “Learn about Jesus Christ” one.

I’d visited the grounds once before a few years back, but pulling up to the parking lot on the promontory, I was dazzled once again. The white granite temple’s five gold-leaf spires pierced the late afternoon sky, the tallest of which rises 170 feet above the ground. Running from the street to the temple was a narrow stream of babbling water, flanked on both sides by towering palm trees. 

While my tour from two young, bubbly women skewed more on the religious recruitment side than I had hoped, I still gleaned a few interesting nuggets of history. The Asian influence in the architecture, echoing a Buddhist temple, is apparently inspired by the Bay Area’s own Asian influence — the church’s temples often incorporate the local culture of their surroundings. 

I like that the Church is still proselyting, but also doing so with what seems like a light touch.

Quote

This time of year, the grounds are decorated spectacularly with Christmas lights. As we walked closer to the temple, a courtyard with a reflection pool led to the front entrance, where a waterfall normally flows from the second to the first story (although it was turned off when I visited). The glass door beneath this waterfall was the only glimpse I got inside — the temple has no windows. 

The rooftop garden, ornamented in pink and blue hydrangeas, is where the temple’s location really shines. On a clear day, you can see the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge, downtown Oakland and downtown San Francisco, the hills to the east and the bay to the west. When my tour guides asked me if I could see the temple from my Oakland home and I said no, they seemed surprised. It’s just that prominent. 

So prominent, in fact, that the church says pilots and air traffic controllers rely on the Oakland California Temple as a landmark at night, when it is brightly illuminated with LED lights. 

“We take the precaution of actually notifying the FAA when we’re going to have the lights out because they have used it as a beacon for landing patterns,” local church leader Jay D. Pimentel said in a video on the temple’s recent renovation. 

I had heard about this FAA thing before.

Quote

The temple’s monthly utility bills run to $35,000, with lights so bright that they have prompted “light pollution” complaints, according to the New York Times.

I think light pollution is a real thing, but c'mon, this is the Bay Area.

Anyway, I have long found the Oakland Temple to be aesthetically beautiful.  

I have great affection for the Provo Temple, too.  But it's beauty is more constrained.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Calm]

I could see the temple from across the Bay when driving home on the bus from my high school, also on a hill, in San Carlos.  Definitely “my temple” though I have only been once inside (besides the visitor center as my grandmother who lived in Hayward would take us as kids to walk around the gardens) when I was endowed and married, though the Cardston temple is way up there.  Besides the gardens,  my favorite part was the friezes.  I am guessing its lack of a Moroni statute is why they always look out of place to me.

Edited December 8, 2021 by Calm

[Stargazer]

On 12/2/2021 at 9:46 PM, theplains said:

Is there any symbolism with losing Moroni on the top?

I think not.

As you may know, Moroni is sometimes identified as the angel in Revelation 14:6, "And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people..." But is he that angel? I don't believe that this is taught as established doctrine, but some may feel that he is. There doesn't seem to be a need to get revelatory guidance on that identification. So what angel John saw is a matter of speculation. I don't think it even needs to be a particular angel -- it might be more than one. Or it might be totally symbolic of the message getting out.

As for Moroni on temples, such statues are not found on every temple. The first such statue was on the SLC temple, then Los Angeles, and then Washington DC in 1974. There were four temples built before the SLC temple, Kirtland, St. George, Manti, and Logan, and none of them had Moroni statues (and still don't). After SLC the following three did not, and the next, Idaho Falls, has one now, but I don't know if it was built with it, or it was added later. 

As far as I am aware, there doesn't seem to be a doctrinal reason to have a statue of an angel on a temple. Why was a statue put on the Salt Lake Temple? I don't know. Your question got me curious so I turned to a book about the history of the temple, but the very long book only says that the commission to produce the statue was given to young non-member artist Cyrus Dallin, by President Wilford Woodruff, with no description of any discussion among the leaders at that time as to adding a statue of an angel. 

Personally, I don't particularly care a great deal whether a temple has a statue of Moroni or not. One way or the other, it's still a temple of the Lord.

One interesting thing about the original SLC temple Moroni statue, is that the artist, whose parents had been church members but who left it before he was born, didn't even believe in angels, and was inclined to decline the commission on that basis as well as on the basis that he wasn't a member of the church. But President Woodruff continued to offer him the commission, and Cyrus consulted with his mother, who urged him to accept it. She suggested that he study the Bible and Book of Mormon for inspiration, and he was the one who settled on Revelation 14:6-7 as his inspiration for the statue.

[Craig Speechly]

My boyhood Stake President, Kieth Wilcox, was the architect for both the Ogden & Provo Temples. I was married in the Ogden Temple, yes they’re both unique but sad to see them go.  Cookie cutter chapels and temples seem to be the trend.

[Hamba Tuhan]

7 minutes ago, Craig Speechly said:

My boyhood Stake President, Kieth Wilcox, was the architect for both the Ogden & Provo Temples.

Emil Fetzer was the architect for both temples. Keith Wilcox worked under him on the Washington DC Temple (and may have on the other two?).

[Craig Speechly]

16 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Emil Fetzer was the architect for both temples. Keith Wilcox worked under him on the Washington DC Temple (and may have on the other two?).

https://nighuntokolob.blogspot.com/2016/02/why-were-first-ogdenprovo-lds-temples.html

 

https://www.lindquistmortuary.com/obituary/Keith-Wilcox

surprisingly, I forgot he designed the DC temple.  But you’re correct, he didn’t design Ogden nor Provo.  Hey, I was a 14 year old teacher then so cut me some slack 😜  never the less a good man. 

 

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Craig Speechly said:

Cookie cutter chapels and temples seem to be the trend.

I don’t know about the most recent, but Payson has a lot of beautiful apple blossom detailing and glass inside meant to be symbolic for its location.

[sunstoned]

14 hours ago, Calm said:

I could see the temple from across the Bay when driving home on the bus from my high school, also on a hill, in San Carlos.  Definitely “my temple” though I have only been once inside (besides the visitor center as my grandmother who lived in Hayward would take us as kids to walk around the gardens) when I was endowed and married, though the Cardston temple is way up there.  Besides the gardens,  my favorite part was the friezes.  I am guessing its lack of a Moroni statute is why they always look out of place to me.

We lived in Northern California, right on the Oregon border.  As a kid, our Ward would car pool down to the Oakland Temple to do baptisms for the dead.  It was a seven hour round trip, and we would spend the night. After the sessions, we would go across the bridge and eat and shop at the wharf.  Good times.  Later, I would be married in the Oakland Temple.  It is my temple.

[bluebell]

5 hours ago, sunstoned said:

We lived in Northern California, right on the Oregon border.  As a kid, our Ward would car pool down to the Oakland Temple to do baptisms for the dead.  It was a seven hour round trip, and we would spend the night. After the sessions, we would go across the bridge and eat and shop at the wharf.  Good times.  Later, I would be married in the Oakland Temple.  It is my temple.

This is how my childhood experience with the temple went, only it was the Idaho Falls temple and I lived in Northern Wyoming up by the montana border/yellowstone.  Temple trips were epic.  Still some of my best church youth memories.  I'm kind of sad those kinds of things are coming to an end.

[theplains]

On 12/8/2021 at 4:52 PM, Stargazer said:

As you may know, Moroni is sometimes identified as the angel in Revelation 14:6, "And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people..." But is he that angel? I don't believe that this is taught as established doctrine, but some may feel that he is. There doesn't seem to be a need to get revelatory guidance on that identification. So what angel John saw is a matter of speculation. I don't think it even needs to be a particular angel -- it might be more than one. Or it might be totally symbolic of the message getting out.

A General Conference sermon identifies the angel of Revelation 14:6 as Moroni; referring to this
as a fulfilled prophecy. But he doesn't identify the other 3 angels which follow in that chapter.
 

[Tacenda]

On 12/9/2021 at 9:16 AM, bluebell said:

This is how my childhood experience with the temple went, only it was the Idaho Falls temple and I lived in Northern Wyoming up by the montana border/yellowstone.  Temple trips were epic.  Still some of my best church youth memories.  I'm kind of sad those kinds of things are coming to an end.

Why would they come to an end, did I miss something?

[mfbukowski]

On 12/9/2021 at 8:16 AM, bluebell said:

Temple trips were epic

I can imagine having a section of every stake center dedicated as a temple

All you really need is two rooms and a place to change clothes. Capacity, what, maybe 20?

Sessions, maybe one on Saturdays, one or two during the week.?

Why not?

[Craig Speechly]

An interesting side note: Many ward buildings and stake centers used to have Prayer Circle rooms. These were used in the traditional fashion we’re all familiar with even in areas serviced by a temple.   I believe they were discontinued in the 1960’s but many of the older pre 60’s building still have them although not used for their intended purpose. 

[The Nehor]

19 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I can imagine having a section of every stake center dedicated as a temple

All you really need is two rooms and a place to change clothes. Capacity, what, maybe 20?

Sessions, maybe one on Saturdays, one or two during the week.?

Why not?

Who is in charge? You need some President with keys (both physical and priesthood) to keep it going. You need someone who can troubleshoot and fix technical problems with the equipment. You need people set apart as ordinance workers to run a lot of it.

It could be done but I think it would be a logistical nightmare and involve a lot of callings.

[bluebell]

21 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Why would they come to an end, did I miss something?

Just because there are so many more temples now that the need to travel for hours and stay overnight is lessening here in the states.  When I was growing up the closest temple was 5-7 hours away (depending on time of year).  Now the closest temple for those living where I grew up is 90 minutes.  Soon there will be three temples within 3 hours of that area.

[mfbukowski]

7 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Who is in charge? You need some President with keys (both physical and priesthood) to keep it going. You need someone who can troubleshoot and fix technical problems with the equipment. You need people set apart as ordinance workers to run a lot of it.

It could be done but I think it would be a logistical nightmare and involve a lot of callings.

Yeah.  Well as an ordinance worker I don't see it as that hard, but yes you are right.  And a lot to memorize, if you don't have it

And training the Presidents has to be done over a fair amount of time in SLC, and they have to be special souls, I have seen that.  One of my best friends, former Stake pres was called, and it was major.

One chapel/ temple for 3 stakes? 5?

Good point.  I dunno.

 

[Freedom]

I have always felt that the Provo temple belongs in an episode of The Brady Bunch. It is to me - what is the word I am thinking of - epochal? Its design is uniquely Provo/MTC/60s but it is far from iconic. If you want to remember it as it was, take a picture. We change our car designs, and our clothing designs. Building designs become outdated and to an extent become a distraction. There is a Dairy Queen close to my home that was built in the mid 70s. Until it moved locations this past year it had not made any upgrades. in a word, it was ugly. When they moved out, a production company moved in and filmed episodes of a tv show that takes place in the 70s/80s. It will soon be torn down and replace with condos. No tears from me. 

 

For the petitioners that want Provo to remain in the past in terms of design, please consider the impact this will have on your property value and tourist dollars. And to truly uncover the silliness of your pleadings, do post pictures of the interior of your home. I suspect it is not equally dated

[Calm]

26 minutes ago, Freedom said:

For the petitioners that want Provo to remain in the past in terms of design, please consider the impact this will have on your property value and tourist dollars. And to truly uncover the silliness of your pleadings, do post pictures of the interior of your home. I suspect it is not equally dated

There are many tourist sites that bring in people because of just that though, they belong to another era.