MORMON TEMPLE, SALT LAKE CITY

The Salt Lake Temple is a temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) located on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. At 23,505.9 m2, it is the largest LDS temple by floor area. Dedicated in 1893, it is the sixth temple completed by the church, requiring 40 years to complete, and the fourth temple built since the Mormon exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois in 1846.

The Salt Lake Temple is the centrepiece of the 4.0 ha Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah. Like other LDS temples it is considered sacred by the church and its members and a temple recommend is required to enter, so there are no public tours inside the temple, though there are public tours of other adjacent buildings on Temple Square. The church permitted Life to publish the first public photographs of the building's interior in 1938. In the photos below you can see a cutaway view of a model of the temple's interior.

The temple grounds are open to the public and are a popular tourist attraction. Due to its location at LDS Church headquarters and its historical significance, it is patronised by Latter-day Saints from many parts of the world. The Salt Lake Temple is also the location of the weekly meetings of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. As such, there are special meeting rooms in the building for these purposes, including the Holy of Holies, which are not present in other temples.

The temple is located in downtown Salt Lake City, with several mountain peaks close by. Nearby, a shallow stream, City Creek, splits and flows both to the west and to the south, flowing into the Jordan River. There is a wall around the temple site. The surrounding wall became the first permanent structure on what has become known as Temple Square. The wall is a uniform 5 metres high but varies in appearance because of the southwest slope of the site.

This post is part of the Weekend Reflections meme,
and also part of the Weekly TopShot meme,
and also part of the Photo of the Week meme,
and also part of the Scenic Weekends meme,
and also part of the Spiritual Sundays meme,
and also part of the inSPIREd Sunday meme.

GREAT SALT LAKE, USA

The Great Salt Lake, located in the northern part of the U.S. state of Utah, is the largest salt water lake in the Western Hemisphere, and the fourth-largest terminal lake in the world. In an average year the lake covers an area of around 1,700 square miles (4,400 km2), but the lake's size fluctuates substantially due to its shallowness. For instance, in 1963 it reached its lowest recorded level at 950 square miles (2,460 km²), but in 1988 the surface area was at the historic high of 3,300 square miles (8,500 km2).

In terms of surface area, it is the largest lake in the United States that is not part of the Great Lakes region.The lake is the largest remnant of Lake Bonneville, a prehistoric pluvial lake that once covered much of western Utah. The three major tributaries to the lake, the Jordan, Weber, and Bear rivers together deposit around 1.1 million tons of minerals in the lake each year. As it is endorheic (has no outlet besides evaporation), it has very high salinity, far saltier than sea water, and its mineral content is constantly increasing. Its shallow, warm waters cause frequent, sometimes heavy lake-effect snows from late fall through spring.

Although it has been called "America's Dead Sea", the lake provides habitat for millions of native birds, brine shrimp, shorebirds, and waterfowl, including the largest staging population of Wilson's Phalarope in the world. We visited the Great Lake in July 2003 and, when the Lake was once again greatly reduced in size.

This post is part of the Water World Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Outdoor Wednesday meme.

LEAVING SALT LAKE CITY

An evening flight out of Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. A rather sombre, yet beautiful sunset...

This post is part of the Friday Skywatch meme.

SALT LAKE CITY PUBLIC LIBRARY, USA

The Salt Lake City Public Library system's main branch building is an architecturally unique structure in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is located at 210 East, 400 South, across from the Salt Lake City and County Building and Washington Square. This present modern library, was built after celebrating the library's 100th anniversary in early 1998. An $84 million library bond was approved to move the library north half a block to its current location. The firm Moshe Safdie and Associates and local architects in VCBO Architecture designed the building, which opened to the public on February 8, 2003. The former library building is now The Leonardo museum.

The Salt Lake City main library has an area of 22,000 square metres and is a five-story tall, wedge-shaped building. The library has a collection of over 500,000 books as well as subscriptions to over 60 newspapers and magazines and 163 internet capable computers. The structure includes 34,370 cubic metres of concrete as well as 16,385 square metres of glass. One of its features is the five-story curved glass wall.

Outside the library is Library Square, a landscaped and paved plaza. There are several shops on the square as well as the studios of radio station KCPW-FM. Library Square is paved with limestone from Israel. Upon entering the five story building, one enters the "Urban Room", which has the same limestone paving as the square. The room extends for all five floors and ends with a skylight of 1,900 square metres. More shops line one side of the Urban Room. A rooftop garden completes the structure. It is planted with trees, grasses, flowering bulbs and various perennial plants. The whole library depends on natural lighting, reducing the need of lights in the library. A huge five story glass wall is where most of the light comes from. It is a magnificent building and I would gladly visit Salt Lake City again just to make a return visit to this library!

This post is part of the Mellow Yellow Monday meme.

From architect's sketch...

To architect's model...

To the actual building