This is a photo of the Alberta Temple that I took a few days ago while I was passing through Cardston. I didn’t give it much thought, just sort of pointed the camera in the general direction, but I think it turned out to be a pretty good photo.
Did you know, the Alberta Temple, the Hawaii Temple, and the Arizona Temple are the only Latter-Day Saint temples that do not have a gold angel Moroni statue on top?
Nice picture.
Apparently, lack of a statue on top is the sign of best architecture.
Jeff, that is a lovely picture of the temple. You are a good photographer!
The three temples I mentioned are also near areas of large Polynesian/Native American groups. There is a reservation right beside Cardston and another one in Arizona. Hawaii of course is filled with Polynesians.
In some circles, these three buildings are known as the Lamanite Temples.
Awesome picture, but my fav is still the San Diego temple :-P
St. George, Manti and Logan do not have Angel Moroni.
My least favourite temple design is San Diego. I’ve always said that they should have built that temple in Anaheim.
When I made the statement “are the only Latter-Day Saint temples that do not have a gold angel Moroni statue” I just knew that would come back to bite me.
Well, I’ll strike the words “the only”.
I might have been wrong about the Angel Moroni thing, but I understand The Cardston Alberta Temple is one of only three temples built with no towers or spires. The others are the Laie Hawaii Temple and the Mesa Arizona Temple, which is perhaps what I was thinking. Perhaps.
They all share the same architectural style (from the outside) as well. I wonder if the Hawaii and Mesa temples also share the Prarie Home interior design motif by Frank Lloyd Wright?
I have never heard the Mesa temple called a Lamanite Temple. When I have been there it has always been filled with very light skin folks.
I think the Dallas Temple is one of the worst designs. Did you know the Dallas Temple has a stream running through it?
I’ve always thought that the Cardston temple looked like the box the actual temple was shipped in…
Sure he is, just look up at the murals next time you’re there.
Bill,
Jeff was talking about architectural influence, not the ethnicity of the attendees.
I think the reason the roofs are bare in those three temples is because Moroni is inside the temples! They’ve got to be some of the prettier ones and I bet have some enticing lounge space inside.
I have never been inside Mesa or Hawai’i, but Moroni has never been anywhere in the Cardston temple in any of the places I have visited there.
Re: #8 – Temples with no spires – Both the Hong Kong and Tokyo temples are unique designs and I think they have no spires.
Hong Kong and Tokyo both have spires and angel Moroni Statues (as observed in the photos anyway).
I’ve never noticed that spire on the Hong Kong temple before. It looks more like a fancy flagpole.
Is that a building regulation?
Apparently they put Moroni on top when it was first built, but had to take it down because the wind can blow really hard in Cardston and was treatening to knock it over. Are the other Moroni-less temples in very windy locations?
Steve, this sounds like a Mormon Myth. I imagine we all would have heard about it and maybe even have seen old pictures with Moroni on top if this were the case. It’s windy in Cardston, but not so windy that they couldn’t figure out how to put up a statue.
Jeff’s right. Moroni would have been too heavy to come down because of wind. It’s not THAT windy, lol. The temple design isn’t really Moroni oriented anyway.
Put it on top where? There is no where to attach him to.
Since the beginning of an era of building large numbers of near-identical temples, in the early 1980s, we’ve somehow developed the idea that temples are “supposed to” have statues on top, and that not having one means there’s something either wrong or exceptional about the temple. But from the beginning of this dispensation until that time, the majority of temples didn’t.
The temples at Kirtland, St George, Manti and Logan had no statues. The temple at Nauvoo had a statue representing an angel, declaring the gospel as described in Revelation 14:6; that angel was never referred to in contemporary accounts as Moroni.
Cyrus Dallin was commissioned to sculpt an angel for the Salt Lake Temple. If my memory serves correctly, it was his idea to equate his angel with Moroni.
After the Salt Lake Temple was dedicated, the Church continued building temples with no thought of putting a statue on top: Hawai’i, Cardston, and Mesa were the next three, and all were missing not only statues but any spires at all. Then the Idaho Falls, Swiss and London Temples were all dedicated in the 1940s and 1950s with no statues, as were the temples at Oakland, Provo, Ogden, Tokyo, and Sao Paolo in the 1960s and 1970s. The only exceptions during this time were the Los Angeles temple dedicated in 1957 and the Washington, D.C. Temple dedicated in 1974. In 1980 the Mexico City Temple was dedicated with a statue, and shortly after that the Church began building large numbers of smaller temples in a few standard designs, all of which included the Moroni statue.
At this time, the members of the Church seem to have a general preference for having these statues, and the Church’s leaders have gone in that direction. The Idaho Falls, Tokyo, Sao Paolo, Provo and Ogden Temples have all had statues added, and the Vernal and Copenhagen Temples, built in the shells of a previously built meetinghouses, both had statues added to them (most strikingly in the case of Copenhagen, where the statute perches on a newly built, freestanding spire).
I suppose I should have mentioned the Freiberg, Germany Temple, which was also built without a statue and later had one added to it. I don’t know whether the Brethren had originally preferred to put a statue on it or not.
Moroni inside the Temple? Hum – A little dust here and a little dust there. Maybe he walks 3inches above the floors also.
…should also have included New Zealand, along with London and Swiss, built in the 1950s with no statue, and and nearly identical in design.
Where does the Dallas temple have a stream? Underground?
When did they add Moroni to the Provo temple? I don’t remember it being there when I was in Provo in ’94.
In 2003, according to http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/provo/
Good. I’m not going crazy then.
As a matter of personal taste, I hate it. It was designed to evoke a cloud and a pillar of fire. Now it’s been painted white and looks like a wedding cake. Give me back my gold spire! We seem to be getting fairly good at showing respect for original design if it’s Victorian, but there’s no respect for the modern Architecture that temples of the 1940s – 1970s reflected.
Bill,
The Mesa Temple was referred to for many years as the Lamanite Temple because the the temple district included multiple Native American nations, as well as the countries of Mexico, Central and South America until temples were built in those regions. Incidently, it was the first temple to have the ordinances in more than one language (English and Spanish)
Anyone notice the lack of Angel Moroni on Google’s aerial view of the San Diego Temple?
See http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=112099477591857711257.00048ad05c320f746f5c2&t=h&ll=8.787199,-45.827047&spn=85.447389,153.703486&dap=&source=embed
I love the Cardston temple. It was the temple I would travel to as a youth. I have been in many temples and to me it is still one of the prettiest. No other baptismal font is as pretty as the Cardston. Every time I see a temple and look at the baptismal font I notice that it is not as amazing as Cardstons.
Also there are actually 9 temples without angel Moroni on it. The following nine temples (listed alphabetically) do not have Angel Moroni statues: 1) Cardston Alberta 2) Hamilton New Zealand 3) Laie Hawaii 4) Logan Utah 5) London England 6) Manti Utah 7) Mesa Arizona 8) Oakland California 9) St. George Utah. Occasionally, local building codes or the possibility of cultural misconceptions preclude the use of an Angel Moroni statue.