A History of LDS Temple Architecture: Part 4 - The Building & the Ceremony

Note: This is Part 4 in a series on the history of the development of LDS temple architecture. This series is based on my personal research and is a looser, less detailed, and less formal version of a paper that was presented at the 2015 BYU Religious Education Student Symposium. For a complete list of posts in this series, click here.

In 1912, nearly 20 years after the Salt Lake Temple had been completed, plans were announced for a new temple to be constructed in Cardston (Alberta, Canada). Taking a move that the modern Church will likely never do again, it was announced that an architectural competition would be held to determine the shape of the new building. Of the several submitted designs, most looked extremely similar to the Salt Lake Temple. The First Presidency and Presiding Bishopric passed over these designs to select Hyrum Pope and Harold Burton's submission, which was radically different and would open up the Church's temple architecture to new forms.

This design eliminated the priesthood assembly room, which made the rooms for the endowment ceremony the largest and most important rooms that affected the floor plan. Harold Burton decided that "the four ordinance rooms would be arranged around the center like the spokes of a wheel, each one a few steps higher than the one before, with the celestial room in the center at the very top of the building...Individuals participating in a temple session would pass through all four ordinance rooms in an ascending spiral. Finally, they would enter the central celestial room, a tall space with ligh coming down from high windows above the roofs of the other rooms. On the exterior, the four ordinance rooms would form four arms of a cross, each arm pointing in one of the cardinal directions, with the higher celestial room providing a suggestion of a tower in the center."*

Before the large Cardston Temple would be completed, President Joseph F. Smith announced that a temple would be built in Hawaii, and asked Pope and Burton to design a smaller version of the Cardston Temple to go there. They did so, adapting the plan to fit the mountainous island instead of the prairie of Alberta, while still keeping the same cross pattern.

The original murals, painted by Lewis A. Ramsey, depicted Hawaiian landscapes in the creation and garden rooms, and a Rocky Mountain landscape in the world room. Unfortunately, the murals were mounted on canvas and almost immediately to deteriorate, due to Hawaii's warm and humid climate. LeConte Stewart created new murals for the creation and garden rooms which, instead of filling the entire walls, were framed in moldings. Alma B. Wright did the mural for the world room, in a very different style from Stewart's impressionist murals, as well as the murals in the baptistry.

Meanwhile, the larger Cardston Temple was also being constructed, although it would be dedicated after Laie. It made use of woods to highlight the progression of the endowment ceremony.

The design of the temples in Cardston and Laie were extremely important for several reasons. One is that the Church was so willing to deviate from the set standard of temples, both in eliminating the priesthood assembly room, and also in allowing a radically different style (to the point of holding an architectural competition). This all but assured that future temples built in the twentieth century could have a variety of style and floor plans--not a guarantee before this point. Additionally, now that the endowment rooms were the biggest and most important rooms of the temple, the building itself became symbolic of the progression of the endowment. Before that point, in the pioneer temples, the architectural symbolism of the endowment wasn't apparent from the exterior; here, it was built into the floor plan.

Just a few years later, both of these concepts were reinforced when the Mesa Temple was built. Its design was also selected by the process of submission. It still used a floor plan that was built entirely around the endowment ceremony, but in a different way than that of the temples in Canada and Hawaii.

The Mesa Temple's highlight is its grand staircase, which was symbolic of man's journey to return to God. Thus, architectural and structural symbols formerly confined to rooms designed for the endowment ceremony were appearing in the shape, structure, and floor plans of temples. This increasing prominence suggested the primary function of temples--the higher ordinances of the priesthood.

The Idaho Falls Temple followed 20 years later with a floor plan that also had patrons going around the celestial room before ending up in it, directly beneath the central tower. And the Los Angeles Temple had the largest ordinance rooms built, with massive murals on its sides.

However, things were beginning to change. When the Los Angeles Temple was dedicated, it used a tape recording to help temple workers perform the ceremony. The Church was beginning to look into more efficient ways to perform the endowment. This, in turn, would have a drastic effect on the architecture.

Next Week: Part 4 - "Bring the Rooms to the People"

*See Paul L. Anderson, "A Jewel in the Gardens of Paradise: The Art & Architecture of the Hawai'i Temple, BYU Studies, Volume 39, Issue 4.