Global and accelerating proliferation of temples in the 20th Century has followed the restoration of the sealing power and the establishment of the Kingdom of God in the 19th Century.
The first temple outside the United States was begun in 1913 in Cardston, Alberta, where a group of Latter-day Saints from Logan, Utah, had established a colony in 1887. The Alberta Temple was dedicated in 1923.
Temples of similar design were built in Laie, Hawaii (commenced while the Alberta Temple was under construction but finished before it in 1919), and in Mesa, Ariz. (1927). These were followed by a temple in Idaho Falls, Idaho (1945).
Planning for a temple in Los Angeles, Calif., begun in 1937 but halted by the onset of World War II, resumed in 1949. The Los Angeles Temple was dedicated in 1956.
But before it was completed, the first overseas temple was commenced in Zollikofen, near Switzerland's capital city, Bern. Dedicated in 1955, it was the first to use modern technology such as motion pictures, necessitated by the need to present the endowment simultaneously in several languages.
Other overseas temples, similar in design to the Swiss, were erected in Hamilton, New Zealand; and London, England, both dedicated in 1958.
The Oakland Temple, designed with a distinctive Oriental motif, was dedicated in 1964. With two ordinance rooms designed for audiovisual presentations, it could accommodate two endowment groups simultaneously.
By the early 1970s, 52 percent of all temple work was being done in the Salt Lake, Logan and Manti temples. The first temples to be built in Utah in more than 75 years were constructed in Ogden and Provo in 1972. They were built from the same basic design — six ordinance rooms adjoining a central celestial room —with an eye toward maximum efficiency.
That efficient design of six ordinance rooms surrounding a celestial room was incorporated as an element in the Washington D.C. Temple, dedicated in 1974, and occupying one of the temple's seven floors. Other features included in that landmark temple were a 30-foot mural of the Second Coming, a large assembly room on the upper floor and a six-spired exterior design suggesting the Salt Lake Temple, complete with an Angel Moroni statue.
Since the mid-1970s the pace of temple building has constantly accelerated. The first temple in the Pacific Northwest was dedicated in Seattle, Wash., in 1980. And the second temple in the Salt Lake Valley, the Jordan River Temple, was completed in 1981, with what was then the largest capacity of any temple in the Church.
Foreshadowing an era of lengthened strides in temple building, President Spencer W. Kimball in 1975 announced the first temples on two continents: Asia and South America. The Sao Paulo (Brazil) Temple was dedicated in 1978 and the Tokyo (Japan) Temple in 1980. Then came the Mexico City Temple (1983), the largest ever built outside the United States.
The early 1980s brought the announcement of seven, then nine, then 10 new and smaller temples in far-flung locations in Latin America, the Pacific, Europe, Korea, the Philippines, South Africa and the United States. Especially thrilling was construction of a temple in what was then a communist nation, the German Democratic Republic (1985).
A smaller design made possible the construction of several temples at a time, something that had not been done since the 1880s, when the Logan, Manti and Salt Lake temples were being constructed simultaneously.
In the 1990s, the already overwhelming pace in temple building has quickened, and some strikingly unique approaches have been successfully undertaken.
For example, because of the prohibitive cost of real estate, the Hong Kong Temple (1996) facilities occupy only the top three floors of a seven-story structure with the baptismal font in the basement. And the Vernal Utah Temple (1997) is the first to be converted for use as a temple from an existing structure (the former Uintah Stake Tabernacle).
Much of the historical information for this article was drawn from by Richard O. Cowan.
