|
Rebuilding
the Nauvoo Temple: Meticulous Attention to Historical Detail
Click
for Enlargment
On a blistering
August day in 1948, two missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints felt compelled to stop at a remote house in
California's Mojave Desert.
The house belonged
to Leslie Griffin, an elderly man who invited them inside.
Although Griffin
was not affiliated with the Church, he told the missionaries that
his grandfather was William Weeks, the architect of the original
Latter-day Saint temple in Nauvoo, Illinois, that had been forcibly
abandoned at the height of anti-Mormon sentiment there in 1846.
The three visited
on several occasions before one of the missionaries, Vern C. Thacker,
mentioned that he was soon to return to his home in Utah.
Years later
Thacker wrote: "Upon hearing this news, Mr. Griffin excused himself.
He returned with a large roll of papers. ... He said: "These are
the original architect's drawings for the Nauvoo Temple.' "
Griffin asked
Thacker to "deliver the plans to the proper place." Thacker delivered
them to the Church's Historical Department in Salt Lake City.
While there
was much excitement about this historic find, no one realized the
role these yellowed drawings would play in the reconstruction of
the temple a half a century later.
On 4 April 1999,
Church President Gordon B. Hinckley announced plans to rebuild the
Nauvoo Temple.
The Church assembled
a design team composed of restoration architects, as well as a research
committee of historians and Nauvoo experts.
Since the original
temple was destroyed in the mid-1800s by arson and a tornado, the
team had to rely on historical evidence to re-create the plans.
They spent weeks
gathering and verifying material to ensure that the modern architectural
expression would be an accurate reconstruction of the original temple.
The foundation of their work was William Weeks' drawings.
F. Keith Stepan,
managing director of the Church's Temple Construction Department,
says that while "the drawings are not complete, for the day that
William Weeks worked, they were a good set of drawings."
Weeks' renderings
provided much information on the exterior of the temple, with some
interior details. Combining Weeks' plans with an early dauerreotype
of the temple and other meticulously researched details, the restorers
were able to piece together a reconstruction plan that Stepan says
"is as accurate as we can make it."
The 3.3-acre
site for the new temple overlooking the Mississippi River is the
same site the Prophet Joseph Smith selected for the 1840 temple.
Construction
workers and craftsmen from Idaho to Illinois helped create the 54,000-square-foot
building.
To duplicate
the original temple's gray limestone exterior, contractors used
similar stone, quarried in Alabama. One challenge was to give each
limestone block the look of having been cut in the 1800s.
Stonecutter
Brad Hansen says that stonecutters who worked on the original temple
"were taking a rough rock and trying to make it smooth," while modern
cutters were "taking smooth rock and trying to make it look rough."
All of the new
stone was handcrafted with the same patterns that appeared on the
original stones. "The stonecutters had to develop their own tools
to accurately make these patterns," says Stepan.
Included in
the new temple's stonework are replicas of the original sun, moon
and star stones. Highlighting the temple exterior, these stones
were made from fiberglass molds designed and crafted by artisans
from Canada, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Idaho and Utah.
In handcrafting
wooden frames that encase handblown glass from France and Germany,
local Nauvoo window makers intentionally created imperfections that
were inherent in the original windows.
Keith Stepan
says of the degree of replication: "The exterior is 95 percent correct."
The only significant
difference is the angelic statue atop the building's dome. The modern
statue stands upright, taking the temple's height to 162 feet 5
inches.
Temple designers
did not have a lot of information about the original interior. But
by using details in William Weeks' interior drawings and studying
other Latter-day Saint temples constructed in the 1800s, they were
able to reflect the period in the design and furnishings.
Despite this
attention to historical detail, modern techniques did change how
the building was constructed. Under the limestone exterior lies
a concrete shell that meets modern seismic specifications.
Also, as this
is an operational temple, the building is complete with modern amenities
and meets all modern building standards.
Stepan estimates
2,500 people worked on the reconstruction project, including 150
volunteers. This is reminiscent of the largely volunteer work force
that built the original temple -- approximately 1,200 men who donated
one out of 10 days toward temple construction.
The modern effort
has recorded over 24,000 hours of donated work. Monetary contributions
from Church members throughout the world have financed the reconstruction.
It took two
and a half years to complete the reconstruction, compared to the
nearly six years it took to build the original temple.
According to
Stepan, the Nauvoo Temple's reconstruction is part of the Church's
ongoing effort to preserve Church historic sites throughout the
United States as well as overseas.
"The Church
is dedicated to preserving its history as a way of honoring those
who have gone on before," he said.
Click
here to sign up for Meridian's FREE email updates.
© 2002Meridian
Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
|
