So often in temples built by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Celestial Room, even when directly below a tower, does not actually look up into the tower (for example, the Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple). There are probably several reasons for this. Some building codes may limit the height of useable space, so the room cannot open into the spire and meet building codes (which I find silly by the way). Also, as a structural engineer I know that the building is much easier to design if you don't stick a hole in the roof diaphragm, although we can still get buildings to work, it just takes more effort on our part. I love it when a temple actually uses the space of the spire to make the celestial room even taller. Here are a few examples:
 |
| Cardston Alberta Temple Celestial Room |
 |
| Laie Hawaii Temple Celestial Room |
The Cardston Alberta Canada Temple and the Laie Hawaii Temple were the first to really use the space at the top of the temple. While neither of these temples technically have a tower, they do jut up a bit at the center and this central space is the vaulted top of each temple's celestial room. The vaulting in these temples allows for windows on every side of their celestial rooms.
 |
| Idaho Falls Temple Celestial Room |
The Idaho Falls Temple is probably the first with a tower that the Celestial Room opens into. I don't have a photo of this, but if you sit in the Celestial Room you can stare up into the tower and actually get use of the tower windows.
 |
| San Diego Temple Celestial Room |
Probably the best example of actually using the spire space has got to be the San Diego California Temple. Its Celestial Room occupies one of its two main towers and provides the spectacular view pictured here.
 |
| Draper Utah Temple Celestial Room |
More recently, the Draper Utah Temple has somewhat used its tower. the view from the celestial room takes advantage of the lower portions of the spire. The upper windows are still not visible from the celestial room and the dome at the top in the picture is painted to look like a dome and actually doesn't poke up into the spire. Even so, this is a better use of the spire space than most temples accomplish.
I'd like to hear about other temples that actually use the spire space in the Celestial Room (or elsewhere) so please comment about other temples that use this space. I hope that we will start seeing the tower space of temples being used much more often.
6 comments:
The Vancouver BC temple has a design that looks similar to Draper from the outside, but has a little stub instead of a spire at the back end. The celestial room rises into that stub.
The celestial room of the Seattle WA temple is in the middle of the building, while the spire is at the front of the building. In the past i have noticed a box-like projection on top of the temple, but dismissed it as probably containing the air conditioning units. After reading your post I looked up in that celestial room and discovered the 'box' accommodates the dome in that temple's celestial room.
Thank you for helping me find something new!
Hey Scott, I'm Jason and I really enjoy your blog. You were the only place that had a good amount of information on the Solemn Assembly Hall in the Salt Lake Temple. I've been going through and looking at all your post. There is so much that I didn't know. Every interesting. I live in Brigham City and I've seen a few of your posts about the temple and was wondering if you're going to the open house. I sure would like to see your opinion of the symbolism and the archieture of the building and design. So I hope you make a post about it if you go. Or even if I met you at the temple and just heard your opinion because you have some good insight. Let me know?
The Celestial Room in the soon-to-be-completed Calgary Alberta Temple is in the center of the Temple (i.e. none of it's outer room partitions are against an exterior wall) - there are however windows at the base of the spire that do allow natural light into the room (very similar to your Draper Utah Temple example).
Please come visit the Brigham city temple. It is beautiful. Very unique. Boyd K packer helped with the planning and made it similar to salt lake yet different. I would love to hear your opinion of things.
I actually visited the Brigham City temple a few weeks ago. I was impressed and will write about it.
I think the SanAntonio, Texas temple has a ceiling vaulted into the tower, but it's not the Celstial room. I'm pretty sure it's the foyer(?) beyond the recommend desk.
Post a Comment