![]() ![]() Smith declared that the full Christian gospel of the New Testament had been restored to him through a series of divine visitations. The 24-year-old farmer, who resided in Upstate New York, founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1830 amid the Second Great Awakening, a wave of religious fervor that flooded the United States between 17. God’s Chosen People are commanded to build temples to prepare for the second coming of Jesus Christ: so preached Joseph Smith. The architectural products of that mission invariably reflect the context in which they were built, whether on the expansionist frontier, in the Rocky Mountains, the postwar suburbs, or the world beyond North America. Since its founding in the early 19th century, the LDS Church has been avidly promulgating its vision of the Kingdom of God on earth. THE ICONIC PROMINENCE of the Church’s space-age temples is not an accident they are architectural emblems of the denomination’s rapid growth during the Space Age. There are 300 temples currently in operation or under construction, including several historic temples undergoing major renovation. It took 150 years to build the first 18 temples (including two that were abandoned or destroyed) these days, the Church announces that many new ones every six months. More than half the Church’s congregants now live outside the US. ![]() Since 1974, the Church has grown from 3 million members who were primarily white residents of the western United States, to almost 17 million members in 31,000 congregations around the world. ![]() These events present an opportunity to explore how the Church’s distinct architectural identity has reflected its evolving culture and mission throughout its 200-year history. ![]() The Church is putting temples, which long had a reputation as being secretive and exclusionary, at the center of its future, and it wants everyone to notice. Highsmith Archive/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Highsmith: Aerial of the Mormon Temple in Kensington, Maryland, 1980, color transparency, 4 by 5 inches. This time, 350,000 people visited in person, and hundreds of thousands more watched video walkthroughs online.Ĭarol M. Temple opened its doors to all again this past spring, after three years of renovation and two years of COVID-related delay. (Unlike meetinghouses, which are open to all, temples ordinarily admit only baptized members who have received the approval of local church leaders.) Some 750,000 people visited the temple during that monthlong open house, making it a publicity jubilee for the missionary-minded institution. Temple was dedicated in 1974, the Church literally threw open the doors of the 16th “House of the Lord” to curious politicians, dignitaries, and the public. It is remarkable that a church with the end of the world right in its name-the “latter days” immediately precede the Second Coming of Jesus-is currently grappling with its own material and spiritual history. By building a massive temple in Washington, D.C., in the late 1960s, the religious organization long associated with Utah not only declared its return to its historic roots “back East,” it also claimed a place in the capital of the free world, asserting itself as both an American and a global religion. temple’s design-a futuristic variation on the Church’s iconic six-spired temple at its Salt Lake City headquarters-clearly proclaims its affiliation. ![]()
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