Architecture in Religion

Architecture in Religion

RY DR. JOSEPH M. TANNER

Who is there at all familiar with the Jewish people that has

not felt the glowing admiration of their souls for the ancient

temple of Solomon ? Whatever may have been its natural beauty,

that ancient temple of worship has been ornamented, embellished,

and beautified by the charming imaginations that have filled the

Jewish heart concerning it. Beauty is said to be a form of art,

but it is also the companion of religion, and when beauty expres-

ses itself in the architecture of a house of worship, that archi-

tecture becomes a substantial part of all religion. The religious

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THE FIRST WARD CHAPEL, LIBERTY STAKE

This beautiful building is located on Eighth South and Eighth

East Streets, Salt Lake City, and was erected in 1913, being not yet

dedicated. It is built of white, enameled brick, with white stone

trimmings. All the foundation is of cement. The building alone cost

$35,000. It is &7 feet wide and 99 feet long. 45 feet high, and has a

seating capacity of live hundred. There are eleven rooms in the chapel

and amusement hall. Pope and Burton are the architects. The size of

the land connected with it is 165 by 165 feet. The grounds are beau-

tifully laid out with terraced lawns, flower beds, ornamental trees and

shrubs. The extensive lawns afiford ample room for lawn parties and

summer amusements.

790 IMPROVRMRNT ERA

architecture of the world is often an index to the character of

human worship. When rehgion is based largely upon fear and

dread, it expresses itself in somberness and loneliness of churches.

For centuries nearly all church buildings have been of the

so-called Gothic style, characterized by towers and spires, by

great heights, as if tall dimensions reaching skyward were really

in some way associated with heavenly expression. We are in

religion as in our civilization generally coming to adopt a new

style of architecture, a style that is really ancient though express-

ing itself now in newness of form. Peculiarities of form, the

adornments of a passing age, all belong to the fancies of man.

They are really decorations and not architecture. There is one

form of beauty, though, that is lasting, however much the decor-

ative architecture may change. It is the beauty of form. That

beauty was first and highly expressed by the Greeks who learned

the art of geometrical proportions. It was the Greeks who really

discovered the principles of geometry. A people that could give

to us in geometry the books of Euclid were Cjualified to give us

the highest expressions of beauty in architecture and in other

ALPINE STAKE TABERNACLI-:

This building is located at American Fork, Utah county, and was

begun in 1909, was partially completed in 1914, and is not yet dedi-

cated. It has a cement basement, with blue limestone, and walls of

pressed brick. The roof is dome-shaped, covered with asphalt shing-

les, and the building complete cost $75,000, without seating or organ.

The outside size of the building is 84 by 132 feet, ceiling of the audi-

torium, 25 feet, outside height about 50 feet, with a seating capacity

of two thousand. There are an auditorium, a balcony, four rooms, a

baptismal font, two boiler rooms, and an engine room in the basement.

Architects, Liljenberg & Maeser originally, later Liljenberg & Lund-

berg. Three-fourths of an acre of land is connected with it, and these

grounds are not yet plotted and beautified.