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.

Manti Temple: World Room

With the recent focus on the Manti Temple and the efforts to preserve its murals and progressive form, I wanted to do a post that focused more heavily on the mural in the world room. I have a post on the rest of the temple, but this mural tends to receive the most focus out of all the murals in the temple, because it is so striking. While I cover them briefly, the most detail can be found in this BYU Studies' Article from which most of the pictures are taken.

In the endowment ceremony, the world room represents the world in which we now live--the world into which Adam and Eve were cast out, full of imperfection and sorrow. Most other world room murals show the world in a fallen state without any humans--animals fighting and desolate landscapes. (Two exceptions are the Los Angeles Temple, which shows Adam and Eve entering the lone and dreary world, and the Idaho Falls Temple, which shows pioneers). Minerva Teichert used a different concept, instead showing how humans have interacted in this fallen world. Her mural ends up being a history of mankind, showing the contrast between those who strive to connect with God and those who do not. Minerva said, "The world has no significance other than people, and that’s what it was created for . . . that’s the story of the world room, it is a ‘people room.'"

Here is the view of the world room as patrons enter from the back. The front of the room is the east wall. The creation and garden rooms are significantly smaller than this room, and as patrons come up the staircase from the garden room into the world room, the effect is breathtaking.

Minerva's mural is basically a history of mankind, beginning on the back (west) wall and moving toward the east.

On the east wall, the Tower of Babel is under construction, one of the earliest stories given in the Bible. From here, just as man was scattered after the tower was destroyed, the story of mankind splits. The south wall (on the left side) shows the history of Israel; the north wall (on the right side, clearly visible above) shows the history of the gentiles.

Here is the south wall, which shows the history of Israel. 

There are four separate stories here. First, we see Abraham, Sarai, and Lot entering Canaan. This is symbolic of the Abrahamic covenant and the beginning of Israel.

Next, we see Joseph being sold into Egypt by his brothers. 

 

Last on the wall, we Moses confronting the people of Israel who are worshiping a golden calf. Finally, we see a the Pilgrims boarding the Mayflower, awaiting their journey to America. Minerva connected the Pilgrims to Israel: "Israel is embarking to the West for the New World."

On the north wall, Minerva depicted the Gentiles--from the Orient to Europe. 

There are 3 groups of people in this pageant--those on animals, those walking, and then those in the foreground, representing the poor, oppressed, and afflicted of this world.

There is a window at the northwest corner of the room which goes directly into the temple's Holy of Holies. Beneath this window, Minerva shows Esau selling a slave.

Next comes the Orient section, showing several people from the far east, bearing symbols of their respective religions.

In the final section of the wall, we see crusaders proceeding in a procession, followed by Christopher Columbus on a ship.

In the foreground are the suffering and oppressed, while the religious and proud pass them by. This includes a blind woman, a father with his homeless family, and a mother with her lame son. Below these figures are some small painted banners with words that are now barley legible. One labels a group "poverty"; another labels them "the least of these." Underneath Columbus is a family driven to emigrate; underneath them, a banner reads "To Earth's End."

Both of these groups--Israel and Gentile--converge at North America, depicted on the west wall, the front of the room. The fact that America is the destination and the gathering place is symbolized by the Native American in the center.

From the south wall comes a Pilgrim seeking religious freedom; from the north wall comes a trader seeking wealth. They represent the different reasons people came here. A Native American stands between the two, already having claimed America as his home. Behind these three contrasting figures stands Zion, brightly lit, high near the ceiling, representative of the ultimate designs of God and destination of mankind. A temple stands in the city. Minerva clarified: "We have not had in mind any city exactly. It could be Salt Lake, Logan, Provo, Bear Lake, Manti, but it is the place where the little stone cut out of the mountain without hands should begin to roll forth until it should cover the whole earth."

Zion is the ultimate destination of the entire populations depicted in the mural; the murals in the story ultimately are about the journey of mankind toward Zion and a higher plane, just as the endowment is about the story of us progressing back toward the presence of God.

While I love the other murals in the temple (the creation room mural is the oldest existing temple mural still in use), this one receives a lot of attention for good reason. It is a unique depiction of the fallen world that opens up insights into the stories of the endowment ceremony. While I am very glad that the Church has promised to preserve the mural and put it on display, removing the mural from its function--highlighting the progress of mankind, as taught in the endowment--it loses some of its value. The form of the mural is less valuable without its function. My hope is that the Church will be willing to keep the mural in the temple so that it can continue to inspire generations.

Preservation Update: Surprise & Sorrow

The Church released a news story today announcing some changes to the Salt Lake Temple renovation and an update on the Manti Temple renovation. In contrast to the earlier announcement, which promised to preserve the Salt Lake Temple's architecture, restoring earlier styles such as paint colors, this news release announced that the Temple will transition to single-room, film-presentation of the endowment ordinance. Not only does this mean the loss of progression and live endowment, but it sounds like the temple will be significantly reconfigured--walls coming down, including murals, many of which will not be able to be preserved. It's Logan all over again.

Here are the releases of the planned endowment rooms. They are ornate, but fairly simple. No murals remain.

Before:

After:

The terrestrial room never had murals, so it looks largely the same, although the seats now face north instead of east.

The Celestial Room looks largely the same:

Furthermore, the release made it clear that the murals were removed, and not all of them were saved. Sure, pictures were taken before they were removed--as was done in Logan--but we probably won't see them again.

Furthermore, the same changes will be made in Manti--murals removed, rooms reconfigured, and presentation changed to single-room, film presentations. Ironically, the St. George Temple seems to have escaped these drastic changes (for now), in spite of its heavy use. Temples renovated earlier (like Idaho Falls, Mesa, and Laie) also escaped these changes. But Salt Lake and Manti--two of the top three most architecturally significant and preserved temples (the third is Cardston)--did not.

Why did this happen?

I personally had a lot of confidence that the Church would preserve the historic components of these temples. This announcement was surprising and disheartening.

The Church has always faced a pendulum with its historic architecture, swinging back and forth between preserving it and removing it. This is for two reasons:

1) Historic buildings are not built for the modern Church. Chapels and tabernacles were too small and too expensive. Temples are inefficient in terms of the number of sessions you can have and the number of people in each session. Live sessions require significantly more work on the part of temple workers. The Logan Temple was drastically remodeled because it was just inefficient and wait times were long. Plenty of tabernacles and chapels were not big enough for modern wards and stakes.

2) Historic buildings do not fit the Church's desired universal standard. Unlike most religious organizations, the Church is centrally managed. Local wards, stakes, and temple districts have little to no say on what is done with the architecture in their area. With worldwide administration, the Church wants to have a consistent experience across the world. This begs the question--should some members get to attend sacrament meeting in an ornate building with stained glass while 95%+ of the Church attends in plain, utilitarian chapels? Should those in Salt Lake or Manti get a different temple experience from those in other countries where there is no live endowment, no historic murals? Should millions more be expended on the preservation of those features?

I personally think that historic architecture that connects us to our past is more important than either of these concerns--and President Nelson's initial announcement of these renovations seemed to support that--but this sudden switch, announced more than a year into the renovation, seems to indicate that there was some debate or hesitancy among the top councils of the Church on these points. The Church also announced these changes after (it appears) murals have already been removed from Salt Lake. There is no way for local (or worldwide) members to petition these decisions.

This makes me significantly more concerned for historic buildings, temples and chapels alike, moving forward. Are we seeing the pendulum swift more toward a focus on efficiency, present uses, and consistency, as was done in the 60s and 70s? Or is this an aberration?

History shows that the Church goes back and forth on this, but the problem is that we can't ever get back the important architectural features that we lost. The connection of the Manti and Salt Lake temples will be gone, just as it is in Logan. History shows that this loss won't be easy--Spencer W. Kimball, who approved the drastic gutting of the Logan Temple, later said he regretted the loss of the original temple's architecture.

Historic architecture connects us to the past and places us in the context of the Church's timeline and our own family's timeline. These experiences are profoundly spiritual and difficult to replicate.