A History of LDS Temple Architecture: Part 7 - The Return of Progression

Note: This is Part 7 and the final post 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.

The last temple to have full murals in its ordinance rooms was the Los Angeles Temple, dedicated in 1956. The New Zealand Temple copied the Los Angeles Temple in having a simple landscape scene decorate the walls of its celestial room:

Celestial Room in the New Zealand Temple (rendering)

After that temple, no murals were added to ordinance rooms (although the Oakland Temple did temporarily use projections to mimic murals during the film presentation of the endowment). This means that between 1958 and 2001, no ordinance rooms had murals added to them.

In 1998, the smaller temples, pioneered by Gordon B. Hinckley, began to be dedicated. Initially, these temples were built with one stationary endowment room, meaning that a session could only begin every 2 hours at most. This proved inadequate to handle patrons, and so the basic plan was switched to enable a new form of progression--two-stage progression. The first room combined the creation, garden, and world rooms, all of which normally had some type of mural in the four-stage progression temples. The second room served as the terrestrial room. This format ended up being similar to the renovated temples that used a veil room.

For the first few years, these temples still didn't have any murals, although the Winter Quarters temple (dedicated in 2001) did have large paintings of the Missouri River and Chimney Rock placed in its first room.

Telestial Room in the Winter Quarters Temple

The Columbia River Washington Temple, dedicated in November 2001 was the first to reintroduce murals, including them in its first ordinance room. There is no background as to why murals were reintroduced at this time, but it quickly was implemented in all new small temples built after that time.

Columbia River Washington Temple

Since that time, this format of endowment, including the one room with murals, has become the preferred method of the endowment.

There were still a few large temples were still built without murals (probably that had already been in the planning stages before murals came about). One exception was the Nauvoo Illinois Temple, which had murals placed in all of its ordinance rooms, the first temple to have all four rooms and murals since the Los Angeles Temple. This was an intentional decision to reflect on the temple's historic character.

Nauvoo Illinois World Room

That doesn't mean that every temple built currently has progression. Some exceptions include Gilbert, Arizona; Payson, Utah; and Kinshasa, D.R.C., all of which have stationary rooms. However, two-stage progression has become the standard, and it appears that will continue.

Meanwhile, the Church has had renovations in its older temples to restore the progression. The Los Angeles Temple, which began to use a stationary presentation in 1981, restored progression in 2003. Laie's rededication in 2010 brought back progression as well. Upcoming renovations in Mesa and St. George also appear (as far as I can tell) encouraging in restoring progression in the endowment. If correct, this would mean that Logan, Utah is the only temple so far that originally had progression and doesn't have plans to restore it. Of course, we will have to wait for more information on that temple's renovation to know what will happen there.

World Room in Mesa Arizona Temple (rendering)

***

From the very beginning, the use of murals and progression was used in the endowment to envelop patrons in the story of the endowment and teach principles of progress, redemption, and exaltation. While film ended up replacing these tools, it's not a perfect substitution, and I'm glad to see that the Church eventually used a compromise--a mix of different tools to teach the same symbols. What's interesting is that these adjustments have largely been preserved in our temples--depending on which temple you visit, you'll get a different experience. Temples have become a living record of our use of the endowment.

St. George Temple (post 2019 renovation rendering)

As the Church continues to build temples--over 200 have now been announced--the architecture may be adjusted further to meet the needs of a worldwide Church. But the temples already established, from St. George to the present, continue to speak volumes about the role architecture plays in teaching gospel principles.