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The Salt Lake Tabernacle, known worldwide as the Mormon Tabernacle, is located in Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah along with the Salt Lake Assembly Hall and Salt Lake Temple.
History
The Taberacle was built to house meetings for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), and was the location of the semi-annual LDS General Conference for 132 years. However, because of the growth in the number of conference attendees, the LDS General Conference was moved to the new and larger LDS Conference Center in 2000. In the October 1999 General Conference, LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley gave a talk honoring the Tabernacle and introducing the new LDS Conference Center. Now a historic building in Temple Square, the Salt Lake Tabernacle is still used for overflow crowds during General Conference. The Tabernacle is the home of the world-renowned Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and was the previous home of the Utah Symphony Orchestra until the construction of Abravanel Hall. The Tabernacle is currently closed during intensive renovations that will greatly increase its ability to withstand earthquakes. It is expected to reopen in early 2007.
Construction
The Tabernacle was built between 1864 and 1867 on the west center-line axis of the Salt Lake Temple. The aluminum-covered roof was constructed in an Ithiel Town lattice-truss arch system that is held together by dowels and wedges. The building has a sandstone foundation, and the dome is supported by forty-four sandstone piers. The overall seating capacity of the building is 8,000, which includes the choir area and gallery (balcony).
Henry Grow, an LDS civil engineer oversaw the initial construction of the Tabernacle, the domed roof being the most innovative portion of the building. Brigham Young, President of the LDS Church at the time, wanted the Tabernacle roof constructed in an elongated dome shape. When Young asked Grow how large a roof he could construct using the style of lattice that he had used on the Remington bridge, Grow replied that it could be "100 feet wide and as long as is wanted." Eventually, Grow engineered the Tabernacle roof to be 150 feet across and 250 feet long. Skeptics insisted that when the interior scaffolding was removed, the whole roof would collapse. The roof structure was nine feet thick, formed by a lattice of timbers pinned together with wooden pegs. Green rawhide was wrapped around the timbers so that when the rawhide dried it tightened its grip on the pegs.* When the roof's structural work was completed, sheeting was applied on the roof, which was then covered with shingles. The interior was lathed and then plastered - the hair of cattle being mixed with the plaster to give it strength. Construction of the Tabernacle began on July 26, 1864, but construction of the roof did not begin until 1865 when all 44 supporting sandstone piers designed by William H. Folsom were in place. Grow rapidly built the roof structure from the center out, but encountered difficulty engineering the semicircular ends of the roof. This difficulty dragged structural work on the roof into fall of 1866 even as other parts of the roof were being shingled. However, Grow finished and shingled the entire roof by the spring of 1867, before the interior of the building was finished. The Tabernacle was first used for the October 1867 conference. The roof has lasted for over a century without any structural problems, though the shingles were replaced with aluminum.
The benches and columns supporting the balcony are made from the native white pine that the Latter-day Saint pioneers found in the area. Because they wanted to give their best to the Lord, they handpainted grain on the benches to look like oak and the pillars to resemble Tennessee marble.
The organ in the Tabernacle has the pipes positioned behind the pulpit, and is a very visible and notable part of the Tabernacle. The original organ was made by Joseph H. Ridges and contained 700 pipes. The number of pipes has since been increased to 11,623, making the Tabernacle organ one of the biggest pipe organs in the world. The current organ is largely the work of G. Donald Harrison of the former Aeolian-Skinner organ firm, and was completed in the late 1940's. The organ has undergone a few minor modifications since that time.
Acoustics
Built at a time before electronics and audio amplifiers, the Tabernacle was constructed with remarkable acoustic qualities so the entire congregation could hear sermons given there, mainly for General Conference. The roof was constructed in a three-dimensional ellipse with the pulpit at one focus of the ellipse. The elliptical concept came from Brigham Young, whom Latter-day Saints consider a prophet. The elliptical design then causes a large portion of the sound from the pulpit to be concentrated at the other focus at the opposite end of the building. This not only brings sound to the rear of the Tabernacle, but essentially doubles the amount of sound carried throughout the building. Furthermore, the roof rests on sandstone piers around the outside, without any interior supports that would impede the soundwaves.
Several years after the initial construction was completed, Truman O. Angell was brought in to further improve the building's acoustics, and was responsible for adding the gallery (balcony) in 1870 that resolved the outstanding acoustical issues. The building has an international reputation as a nearly acoustically perfect building. It is common for LDS missionary tour guides to demonstrate the acoustic properties of the Tabernacle by dropping pins on the pulpit and tearing newspaper there, which can be plainly heard throughout the building.
See also
References
- C. Mark Hamilton, The Salt Lake Temple: A Monument to a People (1983).
- Utah Historical Encyclopedia Article on the Tabernacle
- Gordon B. Hinckley Tabernacle Farewell Address From The October 1999 General Conference
- Official Site of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
Buildings and structures in Salt Lake City | Historic civil engineering landmarks
"Salt Lake Tabernacle"