The temple in Draper was just completed, and opened for tours before the dedication. Heather and I went through on an evening, it is beautiful. The exterior is all done in granite from China, the interior is marble from France, and African Chery wood. The LDS Church has really gone to great lengths to make it beautiful, they also have taken alot of consideration for visitors. The temple receives so many visitors that they have to use a reservation system. We went there at 7:30pm, they have everyone park at one of several local churches, and then bus people in to keep down traffic/noise/etc at the Temple itself. There where five buses carrying just the people from the church we where at (I think that there are at least two churches being used to shuttle people back and forth) and we still waited for about an hour before we where on our way to the Temple. As you can see in the pics it is snowy and cold, but they had covered walkways up to and away from the Temple so you didn’t have to freeze.
I think that the artwork inside was very nice. It was decorated in levels, to show the progression of sanctification, the ground floor was decorated simply, all the decorations where surprisingly simple, not ornate, and not symbolic. I found it interesting that it was so “clean” of symbolism. I usually find alot of symbolism in public architecture, alot of which seems out of place, or used because someone liked the shape rather then because the understood the meaning, or meant to display the meaning. But the Temple had very little iconic symbolism. It is of course meant to be a symbol as a whole, and the rooms each have their meaning, and the colors and tempers of the rooms show a progression. The lower levels are all darker stone, and the dark African Cherry, the middle level rooms are decorated with full wall murals, depicting natural scenes and wildlife native to the area, and then merging into the white stone, gold filigree, and glass chandeliers of the highest floor. No photography is allowed inside the temple, but here are some shots from outside: (Seth took these when he and Valerie visited the temple)
