The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1907-07-05
Sarcastic Comments of Archi-
tectural Critic Who Visited
Salt Lake City.
PREP0STER0US STRUCTURE
REPRESENTS EMPTINESS
Tabernacle, Assembly and Other
Monuments Are Mediocre i'm
Artistic Design.

The Architectural Record, published
IN New York, devotes many pages OF
its July number TO a discussion Of Salt
Lake architecture. It's preliminary re-
marks are devoted TO the Mormon build
lngs and monuments. The article is
written by Franz K. Winkler, staff
representative Of The magazine. Mr.,
Winkler discusses all the architecture
of Salt Lake and finds much to praise
and condemn. but of the Mormon edi-
fees he has this to say:
'One could expect nothing OF the
architectural beginnings of a town
founded as Salt Lake was founded, by
immigrants poor and ignorant and of
various SIS we'll as vague architectural
traditions. But the fact that the mi
grafton was organized and theocratic
made q difference. Joe Smith had pro-
jected and partly built a temple at
Nauvoo on the Mississippi before the
expulsion of his sect, which was solid
and pretentious, and naturally it had
no interest. And while the houses of
the Mormon pioneers OF Salt Lake were
the cheapest and hastiest shelters that
could be provided early efforts were
made to give the communal buildings
of the theocracy as much impressive
ness as possible. This was all of ma
terial not at all of design. 1t was
rather mistake to pretend. as l be-
heve was, II not is pretended, that the
design was revealed Because, un-
fortunately, it was the same kind of
design that would have been revealed
at that time, that time being near the
nadlr of American architecture, to any
untutored country carpenter or stone
mason in the United States, who had
never seen respectable piece of archi
lecture To any tutored eye, the pre-
tense of revelation is Il give away.
1t had been better to give the design
ing 10 some eminent Gentle practition~
er, even if be had executed it in a
spirit of hilarity."
Mr.. Winkler then quoted Rudyard
KipEng's opinion, written in 1889, ridi-
culing the Mormon edifces.
Few Brains to the Temple.
Continuing, he says: ''In truth
there have gone as few brains to the
temple as 10 any edi6ce eXtant. Even
the rude religious beginnings of a saw
age tribe celebrating ITS god give more
evidence of design. show more def
mite building purpose than this prepos
terous erection so much the more pre-
posterous on account OF the advanced
stage OF mechanical art that goes with
the barkwardness of its architecture,
not backwardness. but nero emptiness.
The other architectural occupants of
Temple Square are not 80 bad For
one thing. they could not be worse.
For another thing, they do not show
that waste which almost made Kipling
weep, in making mere rubbish and non
sense of huge blocks of ever enduring |
granite. For a third, they have prac
teal ends to serve, and were planned |
and built accordingly. No edifce which |
is the most straightforward adaptation
which builder could conceive of prac-
teal means to practical means can be |
vulgar altogether, Now, the temple
doubtless serves practical ends, thouoh |
what the are no Gentle is permitted |
to know and not all Mormons- But |
plainly they arr not the basis of de- |
sign of the absurd child s play of
the architecture. The huge. massive, !
everlasting ridiculous was conceived, |
saving the mark. as monument its
practical uses being not only incidents,
but afterthoughts.
Tabernacle Contribution.
""There is said to be a big hall for
concealed somewhere about
the premises. but the secret of its
about the exterior tends to give it
away Tiers Of single cells, an 'ofice
building is what one would surmise
from the outside. Now the Tabernacle
is quite the opposite IN the method of
its construction. One need not go into
it-I did motto be assured that it is
q huge audience room planned and
built straightforwardly for the pur-
pose of enabling rs many parsons as
possible to hear and see. Here is
purpose TO beoin with and for this re-
lief much thanks The great turtle
back OF the roof proclaims the purpose
from afar. One may say that that
architecturally it is neither here nor
there and not worth talking about. In
sooth il is not. But how attractive
the mere absence Of pretension, the
after the violent negation of architec,
ture in its big neighbor. II is in the
same class with the big auditorium at
Ocean Grove, aud with many another
like structure, which nobody would
think of criticising architecturally and
about which the only question is wheth-
en- they do fulfill their practical pur-
poses.
Tabernacle Without Ofense,
i am told that the tabernacle fills
its particular purpose very we'll. It is
without offense. The third Of the edi.
fees in the enclosure is not so good
as the second and could not be as bad
as the first, The assembly hail.
think the Mormons call it, though it
looks more like an administrative build
ing. 1t was built, one imanines, in the
late sixties or the early seventies, when
The fashion was for the Victorian
Gothic of which it is deeply misun
exannle, and is the kind of
thing with which the untutored 'archi
tect, was in those days defiline the
face of nature withal from tho Atlantic
to the Mississippi,
fOutside the sacred enclosure ara
the other two Mormon monuments
The Eagle Gate, which gives access
(does it notYl to the populons village
which formerly held in one story cot
tages the family, literal propaganda
of the much propagating prophet, 1t
is not much worse looking at or talk