Monday, March 11, 2024

Manti Temple Renovation Complete

Photos were posted today of the completed Manti Temple renovation. All of the photos below come from Church Newsroom.


I'm very, very happy about this renovation. It seems they were able to keep everything that makes this temple unique, with the exception of the live endowment.

The annex looks much the same; a historically accurate green color is on the walls. You can see that Isaac Morley's temple apron is still hanging at the end of the annex.


In the chapel, John Hafen's 1906 painting (a copy of Benard Plockhorst's Jesus Blessing the Children) still remains at the front of the chapel:


In keeping with the Church's Christ-centric focus, especially in temples, the Christensen mural of the Manti Temple in the lobby has been replaced with a beautiful painting of Christ as a shepherd. I'm assuming the Manti Temple mural is elsewhere in the building. Beneath the painting, the Logan Temple sacrament table still remains.


In the baptistry, the murals of Christ and Joseph Smith's baptism were added by Robert L. Shepehrd in 1946. In 1982, the scriptural quotations were added by Wes Wright. 




The mural even extends to the ceiling above the font.


On the back wall is a mural of baptisms from the Book of Mormon, also done by Shepherd.


In the ordinance room, the Church has kept the original murals as well as the benches. I was particularly happy that they kept the benches, as it adds some authenticity to the endowment experience. While the film presentation is now used, they added it with projectors and screens that come down from the ceiling, leaving the walls undisturbed.

I had assumed that there would be some kind of equipment in place to make the endowment rooms more accessible--like ramps or lifts. It appears that after some study, the Church decided it would cause too much damage, and so it must still be difficult to complete an endowment session if you have accessibility concerns. (In one session I attended, they recruited 4 brothers to carry a woman up the stairs in her wheelchair.) However, with the Ephraim Temple being built 15 minutes up the road, no one in the valley should have issues completing temple ordinances.

The oldest temple mural in use, C.C.A. Christensen's 1886 mural in the creation room, remains. I had read in another source that the Church planned to remove it and repaint it during the course of the renovation, but it appears that they decided to keep it. This was the most difficult one, since it was painted directly on the plaster (not on canvas like the other ordinance room murals). They said they even found a few animals in cleaning it that you couldn't see before.





It's so nice to have this mural in place!

The garden room's mural, Robert Shepherd's 1944 garden mural has been preserved. The screens at the front, used by actors in the live endomwent, are gone. Also, heavy curtains (that presumably close when needed) have been added to windows in this and the world room; before, there were only sheer ones.





The most popular mural, Minerva Teichert's world mural, has been well-preserved here, too. I also like that the Church kept altars in the garden and world rooms (even though with the current ceremony's iteration they won't be used here).





The terrestrial room looks exactly the same, although two large screens have been added to the front of the room. While somewhat jarring, it would have been really hard to add projectors and screens here. In the other ordinance rooms, everyone faces forward; here people are facing 3 directions (forward and to the sides, all toward the center of the room), so a screen was probably the best option.



The celestial room looks the same, and it looks like it's kept much of the same furniture as it did before:



Several sealing room images were provided, although I'm less familiar with these and can't pinpoint their locations as well. Some are in the annex, and smaller ones are off of the celestial room. If I had to guess, I think the first sealing room pictured here is one of the smaller ones in the east tower (added in the 1980s renovation), the second one is in the annex (also added in the 1980s), and the last one is on the same floor as the celestial room.




The sealing room just off the Celestial Room--which serves as the temple's Holy of Holies--has also been beautifully preserved:



Finally, the Church provided images of the spiral staircases and the assembly room. Both look in great shape. In the assembly room, they've kept most of the floor uncovered, using just runners in the aisles, as before.

The benches face toward the Melchizedek Priesthood pulpits on the temple's east side. This side includes a microphone, speakers, and an organ:




The Aaronic Priesthood pulpits, seen here, are on the west side, but look exactly the same. After the Kirtland and St. George Temples, assembly room pulpits didn't have initials for priesthood offices.


Nearly everything in this room, except for the carper runners and some upholstery, is original. Even the panes of glass. No curtains are needed in this room, and participants can see a beautiful view of the Sanpete Valley.


It will be fantastic to see the open spiral staircases in-person again.



I'm very happy with this remodel. I wish a similar remodel could have been done to the Salt Lake Temple (or even the St. George Temple), but at least the Manti Temple remains the best way to see pioneer temple architecture.

29 comments:

  1. Came here as soon as I saw the news release. I’m very happy with this renovation! I would have liked to see the celestial room get a little update to the veil. Were the mirrors and curtains original? Stain glass like the Salt Lake Temple concept art would have looked nice.

    Happy to see such a non-invasive update to the temple. A great place to go to have a somewhat authentic Temple experience.

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    1. What update would you have liked? The stained glass in the Salt Lake terrestrial room was already there and fits the more victorian-type of interior that temple has. Manti, like St. George, wasn't as ornate and didn't have any stained glass. The mirrors and curtains do fit the time period.

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    2. Salt lake was originally just a curtain, later they added the mirror “pop out.” During the current renovation they will remove that mirror pop out and add double doors and stained glass to enter the celestial room. The pop out entry’s in both Salt Lake and Manti look like afterthoughts to me. I’m not saying they should have copied the new Salt Lake but I was hoping to see some sort of change. Either way, the temple looks great and I love what they did.

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    3. Agreed. A flat wall with mirrored doors Celestial Room side and then a pop out in the Terrestrial room would be more aesthetically pleasing.

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  2. Would have loved to see what the Terrestrial Room looks like now. It was phenomenal even before the renovations, and I can only imagine what it looks like now.

    I'm curious why the instruction rooms still have the plain lowered ceiling with no ornate light fixtures. Maybe they're trying to not distract from the surrounding murals?

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    1. Part of it plays into the progression. Symbolism. The creation, garden, and world rooms, while more colorful, are less architecturally ornate than the terrestrial and celestial rooms. So the introduction of ornate light fixtures in the terrestrial room plays into that. The woodwork does the same. It's much simpler in the creation room, and gets more and more ornate with each room.

      But my guess is that lighting the murals in the best way also plays a factor.

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    2. I finally found some terrestrial room photos and added them!

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    3. Can you please share your source for the additional photos? I am very interested. -Ryan Hallstrom

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  3. You mention about the altars. My understanding was that, like the St. George and Mesa Temples, the 5-stage progressive presentation would be discontinued. However, I notice that there's no altar in the Creation Room. Does that mean that the progressive, 5-room ritual has been maintained?

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    1. From what I understand, progressive presentation will still be continued within the Manti Temple since the instruction rooms directly lead to one another. After all, Idaho Falls, Cardston, Laie, Nauvoo, and Los Angeles still do the 5-room ritual (with film), so Manti will join them.

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    2. I'm aware of those other temples that retain the 5-room progression, but I'm just pleasantly surprised that it appears Manti will retain this structure when so many other of our oldest, recently renovated temples do not.

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    3. Yes, progression was one thing they decided to keep with the murals. The floor plan of Manti makes it really hard to do stationary unless you change the floor plan (which they were going to do). If you're in the garden room, you're sandwiches between the creation and world rooms with no way out. :)

      But the about face on restoring progression really is one thing I wish I knew more about. In Mesa, it was the plan all the way up until the end of the open house. Even the open house materials said that there would be progression. For all I know, that is just a temple president decision, and the next temple president will bring it back (since it already has doors in place to facilitate that). But by St. George, it's clear that they never planned for progression, and if they wanted to bring that, they would have to cut doors between the ordinance rooms. I wish I knew why the church is suddenly getting rid of it.

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    5. I wish I knew too... I'm very glad to hear that it's being retained in Manti. By the way, I'm still working on the Hyde Park Church article. Plan is to get that to you here in the next week or two.

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  4. In the released video they said they didn't even replace the carpet on the spiral staircases. Pretty incredible.

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    1. I definitely thought they were going to replace the carpet in the celestial room but they didnt do that either.

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    2. Yeah, they basically left some areas alone. The 1985 renovation was so good, you can't complain...

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  5. What is the window on the interior wall of the world room for? Where does it go?

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    1. It goes into the most ornate sealing room that is connected to the celestial room. So from that sealing room you can see the large window. It is not clear glass so you can't really see into the world room or vice versa.

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    2. I should add that I actually don't know the history of that interior window and why it's there. I've had a couple people say it's all symbolic ("After reaching heaven, you can look back on the world you passed through!") but I don't think that was the point. I'm pretty sure it was so that more natural light could reach that interior sealing room (the world room never had curtains until now, so light was always coming through it's south-facing windows).

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    3. There are a LOT of interior windows for some reason. Some that make sense for light but others that don’t.

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  6. Hey BT, do you happen to know the functionality for the SA Room pulpits? I've never been able to find a satisfactory source detailing their original use. Did speakers simply stand in place and speak? Also, did congregants have to constantly turn their heads back and forth between the two stands?

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    1. You know, that's a good question. I haven't seen any academic research on it but if I had to give an answer, outside of Kirtland, they've never really used the Aaronic Priesthood pulpits for addressing the congregation. In Kirtland the benches could swing so that you could face either direction. But in the pioneer temples I don't think I've ever heard of anyone addressing the meeting from those pulpits. They could be filled by those presiding officers, but the Melchizedek side is where the meeting is conducted. In St. George and Manti, in particular, benches were used so you couldn't change the seating. Salt Lake used seats so you could theoretically flip it either way.

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  7. Did the Blue Room become the green room? I see the obviously blue sealing room, but from wallpaper patterns it looks like the light green sealing room used to be the blue one?

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  8. Alters are an essential part of the endowment ceremony and will never be removed. They are symbolically used even though someone isn’t physically kneeling at them.

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  9. I just saw this article on the St. George Tabernacle. https://www.stgeorgeutah.com/news/archive/2024/03/27/prc-cherished-landmark-st-george-tabernacle-to-close-for-reconstruction/?fbclid=IwAR0Z32j0EVJZ1JJkjp48LU9mEg8K4ExYEVKguLJv46eaj6IHeqrO6Abgx1g

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    1. St George Tabernacle scheduled to close for reconstruction.

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    2. Fascinating. It just had major renovation. The announcement is so last minute, I'm guessing there's a serious concern that came up.

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