Idaho Falls, Idaho Temple

That is kind of a clunky title, I always thought, but it’s utilitarian and it serves its purpose. Still, you’d be hard pressed to get locals to call it by its full name—Idaho Falls, Idaho Temple. Same is pretty much the case wherever you go. I never once called our nearest temple the Sacramento, California Temple. It would be weird to say the Manti, Utah Temple.

These naming conventions may seem like trivial minutiae, but it does make a difference when trying to find interior photos from the original church press releases.

Anyway. Next in my archive of interior photos and trivia is the Idaho Falls, Idaho Temple.

 

It’s very World War II-era architecture, following the more modern styles of the time. It’s another temple that uses the written word as a form of sacred decoration, with gilt letters over the marble door frame of the chapel (at least, last time I was there ... in 2014, I think). The interior architecture reminded me, actually, of an old-timey chapel from the same era, but grown into something greater (or evolved, if you will—I’m still on something of a Pokémon Go kick). There was a kind of folksy warmth that comes from having beautiful marble doorways in the same room as fuzzy walls, of the exact same kind you get in 80s/90s-era chapels.

Most striking of all, to me, were the murals that covered the walls of the Celestial Room. I have never before been in a Celestial Room with muraled walls! And though the colors of the few photos I could find seemed to fit in a muted, warmer palette, the mural is much cooler in person, with lovely blues and greens sticking out most strongly in my memory.

As for its history, this temple was designed according to the older way of using an official Church board of architects, though this board included some names from previous temple designs we looked at for Mesa, Arizona and Cardston, Alberta, like Pope and Young. Kind of like a Best Of album of recent temple architects.

World War II did slow construction significantly, the groundbreaking by David Smith (sharing a name with Joseph Smith, Jr.’s youngest son, whose story is perhaps one of the most poignant in Latter Day Saint history ... ah, I could do a whole blog post on him!) in 1939 and the dedication by George Albert Smith in 1945,

The aforementioned Celestial Room, with murals

 The Celestial Room is one of the few I could find decent-sized/quality images of. This particular one, I believe, is from the more recent pamphlet the Church published about temples, which included photos of Idaho Falls, Vernal Utah, San Diego California, Salt Lake, and other temples.

The rest, I’m sad to say, are more of the small, low-quality images of the past. If anyone has better quality ones, please let me know!

Creation Room

 This Creation Room is notable, to me anyway, because it’s one of the few that uses anything like practical special effects as part of the Endowment ceremony, with small, blue lights set into the ceiling that look like stars. It’s a very pretty effect.

Garden Room

Also Garden Room?

World Room

Baptistry

Evidently another view of the Garden Room

As of this writing, the Idaho Falls temple is undergoing renovation, so I don’t know what (if anything) described here will change. I haven’t heard anything about gutting or redesigning, but it is a lengthy renovation so some improvements may be noted.