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LDS Church isn't planning to renovate Provo Temple
preserved from Deseret News
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700010478/No-plans-to-redo-Provo-LDS-temple.html
By Scott Taylor Deseret News
Published: Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010 7:17 p.m. MST
SALT LAKE CITY — After Wednesday's announced face-lift to the Ogden Utah Temple, the expected questions regarding the Provo, Salt Lake and Jordan River temples were answered with a resounding "no current plans" by leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Given their mirrored timelines of some four decades and near-identical designs, the Ogden and Provo temples have long been labeled "sister" temples.
Because of the Ogden-Provo parallelism, many reasons cited for upgrading the former temple would seemingly apply also to the latter — seismic concerns, dated exterior and interior designs, inefficient mechanical systems and out-of-date building materials built on old specs and technology.
One major difference, however, is the LDS Church matching a revitalized temple with a redeveloping downtown Ogden.
"You combine that with what was going on in Ogden, and I think the First Presidency felt this would be a wonderful thing to do for the church and for the Saints in Ogden as well as a wonderful thing to do for the city of Ogden," said Elder William R. Walker, a member of the Quorums of the Seventy and executive director of the church's Temple Department.
Still, people wonder if the Provo Temple is destined for Ogden-style massive makeover.
"I think it would be safe to say that that wouldn't even be considered until the Payson Temple (announced last month) is completed," Elder Walker said.
RIGHT ASCENSION COMMENTARY
“No current plans” means ”none of our business.”
The Salt Lake Church bureaucracy has plans afoot. You can rely on it. However, it is not quite ready to release them or do them just yet. If the Salt Lake City and County Building and the Utah State Capitol needed seismic upgrades, then the Salt Lake Temple needs a seismic upgrade, though probably on a lesser scale, since the temple has better-built features.
In the mid 1960s when the First Presidency discovered that church members performed a big majority of the Church’s total temple work in the Logan, Salt Lake City, and Manti, Utah temples (3 of 13 total), it commissioned Emil Fetzer to design temples for Ogden and Provo that could accommodate big crowds of people efficiently. Lots of people could get in, do the work, and get out without tripping over each other. And the Church could construct them -- how shall we say this diplomatically? -- on the cheap.
His design triumphed on both counts. The use of space in the Provo Temple should be a lesson to architects everywhere. The Provo Temple cost in the neighborhood of four million dollars to build, which even in the early 1970s was a reasonable neighborhood for a structure of that size and type.
Unfortunately, the public both Mormon and non-Mormon had problems with the style of both temples. Fetzer designed the temples in a time when liberals criticized the Church for its policy about not ordaining blacks – and to a lesser extent women – to the priesthood. Many considered the Church of Jesus an old-fashioned cult out-of-date and out-of-step with the times. So its new temple designs incorporated elements from the most futuristic architectural style available then. Thus architecturally, the church was – from a symbolic point of view – progressive. The styles available for Fetzer were Googie followed by Internationale Art Deco.
We can summarize the design problem of the Ogden and Provo Temples this way: the design combines googie and art deco architectural elements. Some elements of art deco still find public favor in certain places, but googie fell quite out of style. Having grown up with The Jetsons, I assumed that housing in the 21st century would resemble the Great Googie Symbol of the Age: The Space Needle. Instead, housing styles went backward in time, not forward.
I remember distinctly in the early 1970s, a person I knew publicly stated to me that the Provo Temple reminded him of an insurance company headquarters. For many people the big problem stylistically remains the second floor above ground level – Fetzer designed it to look as though it is smaller than the third floor. The outside walls of that floor consist of floor-to-ceiling, one-way mirrored glass. This is a good feature for the Provo Temple, because the temple was and is somewhat isolated from the city with fabulous views of the mountains and valleys. It worked out less successfully in Ogden, where the temple sat on busy Washington Avenue in the middle of downtown. The Ogden Temple view is less interesting, and the one-way glass reverses at night. Both temples have to employ a lot in the way of drapery.
From the point of view of past and current celestial room designs, the lack of windows in the Provo Temple Celestial Room constitutes another problem. The highest symbolic representation of the Celestial Kingdom seems a little dark in terms of natural light.
The Provo Temple’s economizing elements have worked out less successfully in the long view. It is now approaching its fortieth anniversary. It does look its age.
THE CALL TO ACTION FOR THE FUTURE OF THE PROVO TEMPLE
1. Add more and better protections from the downside of the gorgeous natural surrounding. If Ogden Temple needs a seismic upgrade, so does Provo – and even more so. The Provo Temple stands within a mile of the Wasatch earthquake fault. It also stands on an old flood plain fanning forth from Rock Canyon.
2. Replace the mechanical systems with energy-efficient equipment. Find ways to use less water, heat, air conditioning, and electrical power.
3. Add more and better insulation.
4. Make the interior furnishing more overtly googie, Danish modern, and art deco.
They do not embrace their heritage in 1960s googie, Danish mod, or art deco nearly enough.
5. Restore the escalators. The interior design is a model of efficiency and should be left alone as much as possible. The escalators were part of the building’s original efficiency features.
6. Replace the cast stone on the ground level and third level with some sort of granite exterior. If we compare-contrast the Provo Temple’s exterior walls with the exteriors of the Draper, Mount Timpanogos, and Oquirrh Mountain Temples’ exteriors, Provo’s comes out of the competition looking second rate. The purplish granite of the American Fork Temple looks especially elegant, and the brownish granite of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple looks especially unusual. If the Church can obtain granite facing from the same quarry that provided granite for the Salt Lake Temple and the Conference Center, that would be a triumphant improvement for the Ogden and Provo Temples as well.
7. As much as possible, save the floor-to-ceiling glass walls on the second level. Many find it one of the more spectacular features of the Provo Temple. It will require a better grade of twenty-first-century one-way glass. Certain one-way glasses now available turn opaque with a touch of a button. We might incorporate stained art glass into these walls as well.
8. Redesign the roof for better energy efficiency. It needs more of an incline to help with rain and melted snow run off. Some sort of skylight (as in the Draper Temple Celestial Room design) would add much to the Provo Celestial Room.
IN CONCLUSION THEN
The Salt Lake Church bureaucracy should leave the Provo Temple exterior design well enough alone. This will be the only International Art Deco / Googie design temple left on Earth. As such, it has historic elements to preserve – not destroy.
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