Salt Lake Assembly Hall
Encyclopedia
Temple Square
Temple Square is a ten acre complex located in the center of Salt Lake City, Utah, owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . In recent years, the usage of the name has gradually changed to include several other church facilities immediately adjacent to Temple Square...
in Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. The name of the city is often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC. With a population of 186,440 as of the 2010 Census, the city lies in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, which has a total population of 1,124,197...
, Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
.
Design
The Salt Lake Assembly Hall is a Victorian Gothic congregation hall. Rough granite walls are laid out in cruciformCruciform
Cruciform means having the shape of a cross or Christian cross.- Cruciform architectural plan :This is a common description of Christian churches. In Early Christian, Byzantine and other Eastern Orthodox forms of church architecture this is more likely to mean a tetraconch plan, a Greek cross,...
style making the hall's exterior look like a small gothic cathedral
Cathedral
A cathedral is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop...
. Twenty-four spire
Spire
A spire is a tapering conical or pyramidal structure on the top of a building, particularly a church tower. Etymologically, the word is derived from the Old English word spir, meaning a sprout, shoot, or stalk of grass....
s mark the perimeter of the building's footprint and a tower rises from the intersection of the floor plan's apparent crucifix
Crucifix
A crucifix is an independent image of Jesus on the cross with a representation of Jesus' body, referred to in English as the corpus , as distinct from a cross with no body....
. The cruciform layout is complemented by Stars of David
Star of David
The Star of David, known in Hebrew as the Shield of David or Magen David is a generally recognized symbol of Jewish identity and Judaism.Its shape is that of a hexagram, the compound of two equilateral triangles...
circumscribed high above each entrance. These symbolize an LDS perception that they are a re-gathering of Biblical Tribes of Israel
Israelite
According to the Bible the Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking people of the Ancient Near East who inhabited the Land of Canaan during the monarchic period .The word "Israelite" derives from the Biblical Hebrew ישראל...
.
However, the deceptively gothic exterior conceals a more modern interior lacking vaulted ceilings.
Although built of quartz monzonite
Quartz monzonite
Quartz monzonite is an intrusive igneous rock that has an approximately equal proportion of orthoclase and plagioclase feldspars. The plagioclase is typically intermediate to sodic in composition, andesine to oligoclase. Quartz is present in significant amounts. Biotite and/or hornblende...
rock from the same quarry as the Salt Lake City Temple, the Assembly Hall's unhewn exterior looks much different. The stones for the Assembly Hall were not cut as exactingly as the Temple's. This accounts for the building's dark, rough texture and the broader masonry
Masonry
Masonry is the building of structures from individual units laid in and bound together by mortar; the term masonry can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are brick, stone, marble, granite, travertine, limestone; concrete block, glass block, stucco, and...
joints between stones.
Seagull Monument
Seagull Monument
The Seagull Monument is a small monument situated immediately in front of the Salt Lake Assembly Hall on Temple Square, in Salt Lake City, Utah...
sits directly in front of the building to the east.
History
Construction of the Assembly Hall began on August 11, 1877. Building began on the southwest corner of Temple SquareTemple Square
Temple Square is a ten acre complex located in the center of Salt Lake City, Utah, owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . In recent years, the usage of the name has gradually changed to include several other church facilities immediately adjacent to Temple Square...
on the site of what was called the "Old Tabernacle," razed earlier that year. The old structure, an adobe
Adobe
Adobe is a natural building material made from sand, clay, water, and some kind of fibrous or organic material , which the builders shape into bricks using frames and dry in the sun. Adobe buildings are similar to cob and mudbrick buildings. Adobe structures are extremely durable, and account for...
building determined by the Church to be inadequate, was built in 1852 and seated 2500. The "Old Tabernacle" is not to be confused with the still-extant Salt Lake Tabernacle
Salt Lake Tabernacle
The Salt Lake Tabernacle, also known as the Mormon Tabernacle, is located on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah along with the Salt Lake Assembly Hall and Salt Lake Temple.-History:...
, built in 1867. The domed Tabernacle sits directly North of the Assembly Hall.
During the first two years of construction, the Assembly Hall was confusingly called the "new tabernacle." John Taylor
John Taylor (1808-1887)
John Taylor was the third president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1880 to 1887. He is the only president of the LDS Church to have been born outside of the United States....
, then President of the LDS Church
President of the Church (Mormonism)
In the Latter Day Saint movement, the President of the Church is generally considered to be the highest office of the church. It was the office held by Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of the movement, and the office assumed by many of Smith's claimed successors, such as Brigham Young, Joseph Smith III,...
, cleared up the confusion by naming it the "Salt Lake Assembly Hall" in 1879.
Obed Taylor was commissioned as architect, and designed the structure in Victorian Gothic style, which was popular at the time. Using mostly discarded granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
stone from the ongoing construction of the Salt Lake Temple, builder Henry Grow
Henry Grow
Henry Grow was a Latter-day Saint builder and civil engineer in pioneer-era Utah. His most notable achievement was aiding the construction of the Salt Lake Tabernacle on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah...
completed construction in 1882 at a total cost of $90,000.
After the Tabernacle
Salt Lake Tabernacle
The Salt Lake Tabernacle, also known as the Mormon Tabernacle, is located on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah along with the Salt Lake Assembly Hall and Salt Lake Temple.-History:...
, the Assembly Hall was the second permanent structure completed on Temple Square
Temple Square
Temple Square is a ten acre complex located in the center of Salt Lake City, Utah, owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . In recent years, the usage of the name has gradually changed to include several other church facilities immediately adjacent to Temple Square...
. It has been modified several times since completion, however. A four foot flying-angel weather vane
Weather vane
A weather vane is an instrument for showing the direction of the wind. They are typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building....
like one that topped the older Nauvoo Temple
Nauvoo Temple
The Nauvoo Temple was the second temple constructed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, commonly known as the Mormons. The church's first temple was completed in Kirtland, Ohio, United States in 1836. When the main body of the church was forced out of Nauvoo, Illinois in the...
in Nauvoo, Illinois
Nauvoo, Illinois
Nauvoo is a small city in Hancock County, Illinois, United States. Although the population was just 1,063 at the 2000 census, and despite being difficult to reach due to its location in a remote corner of Illinois, Nauvoo attracts large numbers of visitors for its historic importance and its...
was removed. Additionally, the original ceiling murals depicting ancient and modern prophet
Prophet
In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...
s in the LDS Church were painted over.
The most comprehensive renovations occurred from 1979 to 1983 to correct structural weaknesses in the building's tower and roof trusses. While rebuilding the tower, each of the Hall's 24 spires were replaced with fiberglass
Fiberglass
Glass fiber is a material consisting of numerous extremely fine fibers of glass.Glassmakers throughout history have experimented with glass fibers, but mass manufacture of glass fiber was only made possible with the invention of finer machine tooling...
moldings. Additionally, all the softwood benches were refinished, and a new 3,489 pipe organ
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
was installed. Acoustics in the building were enhanced by installing hundreds of small speakers.
Currently, the Assembly Hall hosts occasional free weekend music concerts and is filled as overflow for the Church's Annual and Semiannual General Conferences.
External links
- Assembly Hall on Temple Square - information from the LDS Church
- An online tour of Temple Square