I like the ornate doorknobs used in the oldest temples. I recently toured the Museum of Church History and Art across the street from temple square and noticed the original door hardware from the Logan Utah Temple (The first and second pictures in this post). The hinge plates and other hidden door plates had flowers and birds cast in them. They truly were beautiful and showed the sacrifice of the saints in the late 1800's. They had very little and yet they put such ornate details everywhere in the temples. This temple was dedicated in 1884.The third picture is of the doorknobs in the Manti Utah Temple (dedicated 1888). I've been in the temple and they look like bright gold colored brass and are incredibly ornate with Egyptian and other symbols worked in.
The fourth picture is of the Salt Lake Temple (dedicated 1893). These are also ornate.
The last picture is of a door handle in the newly built Sacramento California Temple (dedicated 2006). This shows that ornate door handles are again becoming a part of temples. I am really happy about this. I think every detail of the temple should be meaningful and detailed. They should always be our best work. In the 1800's when we had nothing we managed to create very detailed temples, so today in our relative wealth we should be able to still create very detailed temples. Detailed doors are just one aspect of this that I enjoy seeing again.
The Logan Utah Temple was remodeled in the 1970's removing the original craftsmanship. Today's doorknobs are not ornate. They are very simple and plain and frankly boring. I think this is highly disappointing. We have the original doorknobs. We should either use them on the new doors or have replicas made and installed. At the very least we should replicate the design in an altered doorknob. Hopefully the Logan Utah Temple will one day be restored to its original beauty and detail much like the Nauvoo Temple. That will probably take some large donations from members for the restoration. I hope I can see that someday. In the meantime I am glad we are again adding detailed door hardware in modern temples.
