The Church recently announced that the Manti Temple renovation is complete and the open house will be held in early 2024. The Manti Temple is one of my favorites, and I wanted to do a brief post on what I anticipate we'll see when it comes to the results of the renovations. I think overall the outcome will be great, and the Manti Temple will remain the most well-preserved pioneer temple.
Preservation of the garden and world room murals. These murals were painted on canvas, so they have been cleaned and preserved and will still be in their rooms. I believe this is the case for the baptistry as well, but I'm not sure.
A duplicate of the creation room mural. Christensen's 1888 mural in the creation room was painted directly on the walls. The type of renovation the Church does on its temples requires them to get behind the walls, and so all (or at least most) of this mural would be removed. My understanding is that they are going to put up a reproduction so that it looks the same. (This means that the new oldest existing mural in a temple now goes to Laie.)
Increased accessibility. I'm curious to see how they will make the progression between endowment rooms, and most especially between the garden and world rooms, work. It's only a few steps between the other rooms, but it's about a dozen steps between the garden and world rooms. My guess is there will be a small lift, and ramps may replace stairs where feasible. (There are also ways to convert stairs to ramps, but I think the stairs are too steep for that.)
The addition of modern equipment. Basically, there are two ways they could convert the temple to add the film ceremony: have a blank spot at the front of the room (less mural) where the film is projected, or have a projector come down from the ceiling. I really hope it's the latter.
A well-preserved celestial room, sealing rooms, spiral staircases, and assembly room. I believe the renovation team has done their best to preserve these rooms and keep them looking accurate to the time period. After seeing the assembly hall in the St. George Temple, I'm sincerely hoping that the open house next year includes the assembly hall in Manti.
