--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Joseph M. Tanner collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 17 number: 8 published: 1914-06 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Joseph M. Tanner, "Architecture in Religion," *Improvement Era* 17, no. 8 (June 1914): 789–790.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1708unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1708unse start_page: 789 end_page: 790 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1914-06) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1708unse publication_year: 1914 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1914, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # 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 ^ ^^ T 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.