Lost in transformation: Preservationists lament the ‘gutting’ of the Salt Lake LDS Temple

Sometime after 2019, when Latter-day Saint officials assured the public that crucial elements of the Salt Lake Temple’s interior would be preserved during its massive makeover and seismic upgrade, President Russell M. Nelson made a momentous decision.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would no longer perform live temple rituals — in which patrons move from room to room in a richly symbolic reenactment of the creation, Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden, humankind’s mortal journey and ultimate return to God’s presence — that had been central to the experience since the 1840s.

In the wake of Nelson’s decision, the whole architecture that supported the narrative had to be “reconfigured,” triggering a domino effect.

Steps leading upward to reflect eternal progression? Gone.

Wall murals visually depicting the stages of human development? Gone. Historic woodwork, doorknobs, chandeliers and needlepoint chairs? Mostly gone.

“The renovation of the Salt Lake Temple honors the past,” said church spokesperson Doug Andersen, responding to questions from The Salt Lake Tribune, “addresses safety and seismic concerns, enhances accessibility, and creates more space for larger numbers of Latter-day Saints from around the world to worship God for generations to come.”

It was done, Andersen added, “for function and accessibility.”

In temples, faithful Latter-day Saints participate in their faith’s highest ordinances for themselves and do vicarious rituals for their ancestors and “all of God’s children.” This is why members do family history and go often to do “the work” for many others, who can either accept or reject the ceremonies.

The original pioneers mostly went to the temple for themselves, and maybe a close relative. Now, many see it as an enormous — and urgent — assignment.

The church’s iconic temple was altered in the 1930s, 1960s and 1980s, Andersen noted. “This latest renovation, while leading to changes to the interior, also brought back many historic patterns and colors so that the temple will feel more consistent and more like the original Victorian-era temple completed in 1893.”

While those efforts may give the temple a feel of that era, preservationists point out that when the building is completed sometime in 2026 — before opening to the public for the first time since just before its original dedication — visitors will not see the Mormon pioneers’ beliefs about eternity crafted into the space, and Latter-day Saints won’t necessarily enter into their ancestors’ sense of beauty and wonder.

What they will see is a modern temple — more like the ones in Taylorsville and Layton — with a patina of Victorian-era fabrics, carpets, drapes and lights, along with some restored historic furniture and hardware and other added period pieces.

“The furnishing of the temple will look and feel,” Andersen said, “similar to the recently renovated [and rededicated] St. George Temple.”

The Salt Lake Temple will accommodate more patrons, with 100,000 square feet of additional space. It will have two baptistries instead of one. It will have 22 sealing rooms, up from 13. It will include five instruction rooms with increased seating space.

It is all a reflection of the 100-year-old Nelson’s drive to make all the faith’s temples more efficient and more accessible across the globe.

“The same ordinances, covenants and authority are available in every temple,” the governing First Presidency said in 2021, “and will now be presented in the same way.”

Some longtime templegoers wonder why, though, the Utah-based faith wouldn’t preserve a sacred space that stood alone — as an homage to the vision of the founders?

“Couldn’t we have at least one temple with a live ceremony?” asked Jody England Hansen, an ordinance worker in the Salt Lake Temple. “Why did it have to turn into the same as the other 350 [existing or planned temples]?”

What is left?

During the faith’s October 2021 General Conference, Nelson showed a video of himself standing beneath what he said was once the Garden Room. The prophet-president mentioned the need to reinforce the foundation to withstand earthquakes, wind and other strong weather. He said nothing about the interior.

The church meticulously photographed, documented and categorized every element before removing them. Some were salvaged and put in storage.

The only things that were preserved in their original place, Andersen wrote in an email, were “the Celestial Room, two original sealing rooms, the large Assembly Room on the fifth floor and most of the Terrestrial Room.”

The staircase “connecting the temple’s first and second floors” has been removed, while four spiral staircases in the towers “are being restored,” the spokesperson said, including the landing where Latter-day Saints believe that former church President Lorenzo Snow saw Jesus Christ.

Murals, which graphically expressed the story of creation and human existence, were removed and will not be restored or replaced.

“They were originally painted directly on lath and plaster walls, which had been repaired and repainted many times because of water damage and other deterioration,” Andersen explained. “Further, the change to a film presentation meant that the rooms would be reconfigured.”

The Tiffany stained-glass windows “have been cleaned, refurbished, and will be reinstalled in the temple with better lighting for patrons to appreciate,” he said. “Other historic light fixtures have been refurbished, including being brought to current electrical codes, and will return to the temple.”

Everything else, Andersen said, “will be period appropriate.”

“The renovated temple will feel more consistent and more like the original Salt Lake Temple from beginning to end,” Bill Williams, the church’s director of architecture, said in a Saturday news release. “As soon as you walk through the doors of the north entry pavilion, it will look like a Victorian-era temple, which was never the case after previous renovations. I think for most people it will feel like, ‘Wow. Now it feels like the Salt Lake Temple from stem to stern.’”

Presiding Bishop Gérald Caussé, who oversees the faith’s vast real estate, financial, investment and charitable operations, conceded that crews “were not able to keep all elements of the original temple.”

“It’s also true that the Salt Lake Temple is a living building — with a past and a future,” he said in the release. “We have done everything possible to preserve this holy edifice. I rejoice that this significant renovation is creating spaces for future generations to have their own sacred experiences.”

But renovation and re-creation are not necessarily preservation.

David Amott, former executive director of Preservation Utah, applauds the church’s efforts to craft interiors that “resemble” the earlier era. He does resent, however, that it “will only be a pastiche of a Victorian-era building rather than actually be the Victorian-era building it once was.”

Seismic upgrades and accessibility

Issues related to safety, seismic concerns and accessibility, Amott argued in an email, could have been addressed without gutting the temple.

“The City and County Building [now Salt Lake City Hall] and the Utah Capitol underwent a very similar seismic treatment to what the Salt Lake Temple is now undergoing,” he said. “While certain elements were removed during their seismic reinforcement, neither building was gutted to the extent the Salt Lake Temple has now been gutted.”

It is true that the Salt Lake Temple, like most other buildings of its vintage, underwent changes over time, Amott said, some of which, in retrospect, “were not terribly sensitive.”

“Fundamentally, however, the Salt Lake Temple was a building that generations of church leadership and members profoundly cared about and for. I find it deeply, deeply offensive that the church is using these previous renovations, some of which were easily reversible, to excuse the thorough gutting the building has now undergone.”

If original elements were removed previously, Amott said, “bring them back. … If original elements were painted over, strip the paint.”

Time and time again, Latter-day Saint leaders have used this now-removed artisanship “to emphasize the faith and dedication of past generations of church members,” he said, “and to inspire the present membership to follow in their footsteps.”

For years, a book titled “Every Stone a Sermon: The Magnificent Story of the Construction and Dedication of the Salt Lake Temple” sat on the Amott family’s coffee table.

“I was raised to believe that buildings like the Salt Lake Temple were ‘sermons in stone,’” he said. “I correspondingly believe that architecture is a special language that can get you insights about the human experience just as quickly as written or spoken language can . . . if you only but take the time to learn this language.”

The church itself has argued, for instance, that the height of its temple steeples — which have become sore spots in some communities — “is part of our religious observance,” symbolically “lifting our eyes and thoughts to heaven.”

The Manti example

In 2019, when the church detailed plans to upgrade the Salt Lake Temple, it stated that some original historic aspects, the feel and character of its rooms, murals and interior architectural flourishes would be unchanged.

Renderings shown at that news conference depicted temple rooms restored to their pioneer-era glory.

At some point, though, Nelson changed the plan and directed workers to move forward with demolition without alerting the public.

By the time it was announced in March 2021, most of the historic elements had already been discarded, but a future planned gutting of the Manti Temple sparked an uproar.

After confronting weeks of negative feedback, the church leadership eventually backed away from extensive changes to the pioneer masterpiece in Manti and instead announced the “burden” carried by the historic edifice would be alleviated through the construction of a new temple a few miles away in Ephraim.

The exquisite murals painted by famed artist Minerva Teichert were painstakingly preserved and restored to their earlier luster.

Earlier this year, the lovingly renovated Manti Temple was opened and toured by hundreds of thousands to widespread approval and applause.

“If Christ wanted the Manti Temple saved, wouldn’t he want the Salt Lake Temple saved as well?” Amott asked. “Or does Christ love the Manti Temple’s features more than the Salt Lake Temple’s features? Would our dead ancestors not also have rejoiced if the Salt Lake Temple was saved, just as they rejoiced about the Manti Temple?”

‘Weeping’ with the loss

It was like the church made a “corporate decision, based on efficiency,” said Park City resident Ellie Sonntag, who was once involved in temple interior design, “to destroy the first Latter-day Saints’ symbols of their devotion and sacrifice for their God.” It was what made them “cross oceans and Plains.”

These days, temples in other parts of the world reflect that region in their art and design, she said. “They come to Salt Lake to see the beginnings of their history. It’s the same reason we go to Europe. Why would they come here if it’s going to be the same as where they live?”

Stripping the interior of the temple, Utah’s most prominent religious structure, is taking away a crucial part of the state’s identity. It would be “like gutting the Library of Congress, the U.S. Capitol or the White House,” Sonntag said. “You don’t do it because of the historic nature of what happened in those places.”

Beyond the loss of the temple’s internal structure, said Jody England Hansen, the temple ordinance worker and an Exponent II blogger, it’s also a loss for the physical expression of Mormonism’s sacred theology.

“A crucial part of my religious experience,” Hansen said, “is dead.”

The whole design of that space was for a “theatrical ascension journey,” said Hansen, a ninth-generation Latter-day Saint. “They are trying to turn it into something it was not meant to be — a megaplex movie theater.”

Instead of the live ceremony, which was meant to be a “learning ritual that leads to inspiration and transformation,” she said, now it is “about seeing how many people they can get through quickly.”

The blood of her ancestors is “in that wood and stone,” said Hansen, whose grandfather was in the temple presidency in the 1960s, when one of the earlier renovations took place. “I’ve loved that space since I was a child and have been mourning its death since it was announced that it is not even going to be restored.”

The pioneers built it “to connect us to things more powerful than time and distance, and that is gone,” she said. “How can we talk about it without weeping?”

‘Flattening’ the experience

Amott, the preservationist, recognizes that the 17.2 million-member church is an international faith. That is symbolized in the replacement of a fountain on the plaza of the nearby Church Office Building with a collection of flags from around the world and reflected in the similar look of the recent wave of temples.

By doing this, however, the church is “flattening the Mormon experience,” Amott said. “Everyone gets the same treatment.”

Yet, in an intensely globalized world, “people will long for the local and the unique,” he said. “Some individuals gladly pay more for local produce and even travel around the world to find, in remote locations, what is ‘real’ and has yet to be ‘spoiled.’”

Latter-day Saints are told that “individual revelation is key, even essential,” Amott said, “to successfully navigate life’s rocky shoals.”

If the church learned how to balance this desire for the individual, the personalized, the traditional, the historic and the local, he said, it might do better “at reaching present and future generations.”

And the Salt Lake Temple could have been its lighthouse.