On December27, 1832, two years after the organization of the Church of Christ (Latter Day Saints),Doctrine and Covenants LDS 20:1 the movement's founder, Joseph Smith, stated he received a revelation that called upon church members to restore the practice of temple worship. The Latter Day Saints in Kirtland, Ohio, were commanded to:

The largest of the denominations that emerged from the Latter Day Saint movement, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), views temples as the fulfillment of a prophecy found in (King James Version).

The Kirtland Temple was the first temple of the Latter Day Saint movement and the only one completed in Smith's lifetime. Its unique design was replicated on a larger scale with the Nauvoo Temple and in subsequent temples built by the LDS Church. As the needs of the church have changed, so has temple architecture—from large castellated structures adorned with celestial symbols to smaller, simpler designs often derived from a standard set of plans.

Historic Temples

Kirtland Temple

The Kirtland Temple, built in Kirtland, Ohio, was not designed as a church or cathedral. It was intended as a house of learning, where the School of the Prophets could meet. The temple was not built to accommodate the endowment ceremony, which was introduced later. It has no baptistery, as baptism for the dead was not yet practiced. The structure has two unique sets of pulpits, representing the Aaronic Priesthood and the Melchizedek Priesthood. The American architect Truman O. Angell recorded in his journal that around this time Frederick G. Williams, one of Smith's counselors in the church's First Presidency, came into the temple during construction and related the following account:

Following Smith's death and the associated succession crisis, Angell continued as the architect of the LDS Church, designing the Salt Lake Temple, Lion House, Beehive House, Utah Territorial Statehouse, St. George Temple, and many other public buildings.

The sandstone used to build the Kirtland Temple was quarried from south of the temple. Native timbers were cut from the surrounding forests. The temple, begun in 1833 and dedicated in 1836, was one of the largest buildings in Northern Ohio. It is a combination of Greek, Georgian, Gothic Revival, and Federalist architectural styles. The building has been designated a National Historical Landmark, and it has been recognized by the Architects Society of Ohio and the Ohio Historical Society.

The pulpits and the pews are among the distinctive features of the temple's interior. Two sets of pulpits grace the main floor, with another two sets on the second floor. The seats in the pew boxes are benches that can be shifted from back to front, thus making it possible for the congregation to face either the front or the rear pulpit.

The main floor of the Kirtland Temple was used for various worship services, and the second floor was used as a school for the ministry. The third floor contained rooms for the "Kirtland High School" during the day and church quorum meetings during the evening. The west third-floor room was Smith's office.

Nauvoo Temple

Construction of the original Nauvoo Temple began on April6, 1841, and its final dedication was in May1846. Differing from the Kirtland slightly in that it leaned more towards neoclassical in style, this temple was designed in the Greek Revival style by architect William Weeks, under the direction of Smith. Weeks' design made use of sunstones, moonstones, and starstones. Some people have thought that these represented distinctively Latter-day Saint motifs, the Three Degrees of Glory in the LDS Church's conception of the afterlife (D&C 76: 70–81). The placement of these symbols on the building in descending order—starstones, sunstones, and moonstones—does not support the preceding claim, but rather reflects .

At its base, the building was 128ft (39m) long and 88ft (27m) wide, with a clock tower and weather vane reaching 165ft (50m)—a 60% increase over the dimensions of the Kirtland Temple. Like the Kirtland, the Nauvoo Temple contained two assembly halls, one on the first floor and one on the second, called the lower and upper courts. Both temples had classrooms and offices in the attic. Unlike the Kirtland, the Nauvoo Temple had a full basement, which housed a baptismal font.

Basement The basement of the Nauvoo Temple, used as the baptistery, contained a large baptismal font in the center of the main room. The basement proper was long and wide, with six rooms of varying size on either side. The basement originally featured a tongue-and-groove white-pine font painted white. The font was 16ft (4.9m) long, 12ft (3.7m) wide, and 4ft (1.2m) deep. This font was replaced with a limestone one after several years to better handle water. Two railed stairways led to the font from the north and south sides. A well on the east side of the font provided the water supply.

Great Hall

A flight of eight broad steps led to a landing, where two more steps entered three archways. These archways led to the vestibule, the formal entrance to the temple. The archways were approximately wide and high.

Two large double doors on the east wall opened to the first-floor assembly hall of the lower court, known as the "Great Hall", which occupied the remainder of the floor space east of the vestibule. Two doors—one on the north wall and another on the south—opened to the landing of two spiral staircases (one in the northwest corner and the other in the southwest) which led to the attic. These were the only points of access to the rest of the building. The room was flanked on either side by seven large, arched windows, with four similar windows along the east wall. An arched ceiling spanned some in breadth, in the center of the room. The floor was stained wood, and the walls were painted white.

One report mentioned that on the east wall of the vestibule was an entablature, similar to the one on the facade, which read in bright gilded letters as follows: "THE HOUSE OF THE LORD – Built by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – Commenced April6th, 1841 – HOLINESS TO THE LORD."

At the east and west ends of the hall were two sets of similar pulpits. These were arranged with four levels, the top three consisting of a group of three semi-circular stands. The lowest level was a drop table that was raised for use in the sacrament. The pulpits to the east, standing between the windows, were reserved for the Melchizedek Priesthood. Written in gilded letters along the arch of the ceiling, above the eastern pulpits, were the following words: "The Lord Has Seen Our Sacrifice – Come After Us." The pulpits at the west end were reserved for the Aaronic Priesthood.

The hall was fitted with enclosed pews with two aisles. The room could accommodate as many as 3,500 people. Because there were pulpits at both ends of the room, the pews had movable backs that could be swung to face either direction, depending on who was presiding—the Melchizedek Priesthood or the Aaronic Priesthood. The first floor also included a mezzanine with fourteen small rooms.

Stairwells The two stairwells were constructed of dressed limestone walls. One rose from the northwest corner and the other from the southwest corner of the temple. They were not true circles but were flattened on four sides; they were also asymmetrical, measuring 16ft (4.9m) in diameter from east to west and 17ft (5.2m) from north to south. This was done to support landings and other support structures.

The staircases, made of wood, provided access to all levels of the temple, with a landing at each floor. The southwest staircase was completely finished, but the staircase in the northwest corner was never completed—it was roughed in with temporary boards resting on the risers. Workmen used this staircase to gain access to the building during its construction, especially during the winter of 1845–1846, when persons were using the other staircase to reach the attic for ordinance work.

Second-floor assembly hall

The second-floor hall was similar in construction to the Great Hall, except that it included the foyer area, the location of the vestibule. This made the room about seventeen ft longer than the Great Hall. A stone arch ran north and south between the circular stairwells supporting the massive timbers for the tower above. The room had seven large windows along the north and south walls, with four windows along the east wall.

The floor would have had a similar configuration as the Great Hall with a set of double pulpits and pews, but the interior was never completed. The room was furnished with wooden benches for an occasional meeting. The second-floor hall also included a mezzanine with fourteen small rooms.

Attic

At the top of the temple's two stairways, opening to a foyer, was the attic floor. The attic was built not of limestone, but of wood. The west end of the temple was a flat-roofed section that supported the tower. The rest of the attic was a pitched-roof section running the length of the temple. The area was illuminated by six windows along the foyer's west wall. Outside windows also provided light along the north and south sides. The roof had four octagonal skylight windows to provide light for the interior rooms, in addition to a twenty-foot arched window.

Tower rooms Rising from the plateau of the attic was an octagonal tower. The tower was divided into three sections, each accessible by a series of stairways leading from the attic to an observation deck above. The lowest section was a belfry containing a bell, which was rung for various occasions. Between the observation deck and the belfry was a section containing four clockwork mechanisms.

Reconstruction In 1999, it was announced that the temple would be rebuilt with the same exterior appearance as the original temple. On June27, 2002, the Nauvoo Illinois Temple was dedicated. The limestone used for the original temple had been quarried from a site just west of the temple. The stone for the new temple was quarried in Russellville, Alabama, a site chosen specifically because the stone best matched the original.

The reconstructed baptistery follows the original, with the addition of a metal lining to prevent deterioration and a platform where witnesses may sit. The floor of the baptistery, the largest of any temple in the LDS Church, was replicated in red brick tile. A dome and chandelier are featured in the ceiling, and an art glass window is at the east end. The room has intricate crown moldings. The window moldings include a framework for six-pointed stars made of red, white, and blue glass to replicate the originals.

Major designs

Castellated temples in Utah

St. George Utah Temple

The St. George Utah Temple (1), described as castellated neo-Gothic and French Norman Revival in style, has three ordinance rooms and eighteen sealing rooms. It has a total floor space of .

The temple was originally patterned after the Kirtland and Nauvoo Temples, with two large assembly halls featuring a set of pulpits at each end. The lower hall was partitioned with screens for presenting the endowment. The temple was extensively remodeled during 1937–1938, when the lower hall was permanently divided into five progressive-style endowment rooms.

About a year after the original dedication, a lightning storm caused extensive damage to the original tower. It was replaced with a taller tower.

Following a second major renovation project in 1975, the progressive-style ordinance rooms were replaced with three motion-picture ordinance rooms. Live-acting endowment sessions were much longer than the filmed ones, and only three were performed each day. The film version permitted fourteen sessions each day.

Logan Utah Temple