This page contains quotes from Church leaders and others involved in the construction of the Provo City Center Temple.
Bishop Gérald Caussé / Presiding Bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
“It is such a blending of historical preservation and abundant construction. And you find the style, the culture. Such a tribute to the legacy of those early Saints and the pioneers who settled in the area and built this old tabernacle. You find some of the materials have been preserved, but also the style and the culture of those people.”
“It's just beautiful. The colors in the temple, the furniture. As you sit there, you feel like it's not just a new temple. There's a love … that testifies of the faith of those people that worshipped in the old tabernacle.”
“What is interesting, this old tabernacle, following the fire that destroyed it five years ago, is being elevated to a higher purpose, even the temple. So members of the Church will come, but they will come with this desire to receive the holy covenants and ordinances in the temple, being blessed and united with their family forever. I'm sure the early Saints are thrilled to learn that their old building has been elevated to the purpose of a temple.”
“On the 15th of January, we'll start the open house. We are hopeful there will be thousands — hundreds of thousands — that will come here to see and feel of the spirit of the temple and admire the work that has been done here. I'm looking forward to that day and also the dedication that will be held on March 20.”
Brent Roberts / Managing Director, Special Projects Department
“The First Presidency respect the work of those that have gone on before them — architects who put together a project that served as the gem of Utah County for years and years and years — and their decision to move it to a temple is obviously a revelatory decision on their part.”
“What I appreciate most is how they did it. How did the pioneers do what they did? I had cranes on site, I had dump trucks, I had concrete and I had brick masons. I had at my disposal the best of the best. It took us 40 months to replicate what they did.”
“It was immediately condemned off-limits from the fire because we still had bricks from the inside and rubble still falling. That's how critical it was. If we would've lost a full wall, it would've changed the perspective of everything, but we didn't. It was absolutely critical to the success of keeping those walls intact. It allowed us a base that we could work from, and it was miraculous.”
Emily Utt / Historic Sites Curator, Church History Department
“One of the most significant parts of this project has been how we have tried to capture the voice of people who have lived in Provo for 150 years. For Provo residents, this has been one of the most significant buildings. In the days after the fire, we didn't just rush in and do something and make a decision that week and then move on to the next project. We took our time to really understand this building.”
“We found a lot more architectural details than we were expecting. We found enough of the window trim that we know exactly what the interior windows look like. We found baseboards. We found pews. We found parts of the rostrum. We found the original pulpit completely intact. We found in one area behind two false walls and four layers of wallpaper an original hand-painted stencil detail from the 1880s that we never would've found without the fire.”
“Tabernacles are really community centers. They're open every day of the week. People meet on Sundays in these buildings. They hold concerts and other public events and funerals. Temples, while they still have this very strong community focus, are centered more on helping Latter-day Saints worship and connect with God during the week when maybe their meetinghouse or their tabernacle isn't as open.”
Kirk Dickamore / Vice President, Jacobsen Construction
“After it was on stilts, and while we were doing that, we were concerned about the water table. Because the water table was only like 15 feet down, and we went 40 feet down. So the temple is like a boat or a bathtub with waterproofing, multiple layers of waterproofing and protection down there, so it can … not have any water damage later on.
“Before we did anything we removed two layers of brick on the inside. We drilled into the remaining three layers of brick and put [helical wall] ties in there [to anchor the wall] and then extended that into a double-cage rebar mat where we then took shotcrete (type of cement) and placed it on the inside [walls] of the building. That tied those three widths of brick in with the foundation, … and that stabilized the structure.”
Richard Talbot / Archaeologist, BYU
“There was a building on the property that predated the second tabernacle and that was the original tabernacle. When the decision was made to build a temple, to convert this tabernacle into a temple, the Church had the desire to locate that original tabernacle and to find out more about it, whether or not it even existed. And if it did, what remained? How much remained?”