Exterior renderings have been released for two far-apart temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And the history of the Church in each nation is vastly different.
The Vienna Austria Temple will be the first in the country. The Culiacán Mexico Temple is one of 27 temples in various stages in Mexico. Austria’s first stake was organized in 1980, while Mexico’s first was in 1895.
Yet both temples will have the same designation once built: “house of the Lord.”
The renderings for these two sacred edifices were first published Monday, March 23, on ChurchofJesusChrist.org. Read more below about these temples and the history of the Church in Austria and Mexico.
The Vienna temple and Church in Austria
On April 4, 2021, then-Church President Russell M. Nelson announced Austria’s first house of the Lord for its capital city, Vienna.
It was one of 20 temple locations he identified in April 2021 general conference, alongside two other temples for Europe — in Brussels, Belgium, and Oslo, Norway — both of which were also the first in each nation.
As previously announced, the Vienna temple is planned as a multistory building of approximately 15,300 square feet. It will be built on a 0.80-acre site at Silbergasse 2, Vienna, Austria.
Of the 26 houses of the Lord in various stages of operation, construction and planning, three are currently in the construction phase: the Birmingham England Temple (ground broken in March 2025), Budapest Hungary Temple (June 2025) and Brussels Belgium Temple (November 2025).
The restored gospel was first preached in Austria in 1865, but Church growth was sporadic because of legal restrictions and conflicts, so the missionaries left later that year. In September 1955, Austria granted official government recognition to the Church.
The country’s first stake was organized in Vienna in 1980. A second was organized in Salzburg in 1997.
Today, Austria is home to around 4,700 members of the Church, in 17 wards and branches.
The Culiacán temple and Church in Mexico
President Nelson announced the Culiacán temple on Oct. 3, 2021, in the October 2021 general conference. It was one of 13 houses of the Lord he announced in that setting, with only four of them in the United States.
The Culiacán temple, as previously announced, will be a one-story structure of approximately 10,000 square feet and will stand adjacent to a patron housing building.
It will be built on a 5-acre site off of Avenida Milenium in the Colonia Country Tres Ríos, between the cross streets of Miguel Tamayo Espinoza de los Monteros and Boulevard José María Figueroa Díaz.
Of Mexico’s 27 temples in various stages, 14 are dedicated: in Mexico City, Colonia Juárez, Ciudad Juárez, Hermosillo, Oaxaca, Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Tampico, Villahermosa, Mérida, Veracruz, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Tijuana and Puebla.
Another three are under construction, in Torreón, Querétaro and San Luis Potosí.
In addition to the Culiacán temple, houses of the Lord in planning and design stages include the Mexico City Benemérito, Cuernavaca, Pachuca, Toluca, Tula, Cancún, Chihuahua, Juchitán de Zaragoza and Reynosa temples.
Missionary work began in Mexico in 1875, when seven missionaries were sent to the country. The first five members in Mexico were baptized in Hermosillo, Sonora, in 1877. A branch was soon established in Mexico City in 1879. The country’s first stake, the Juárez Stake, was created in 1895.
Today, Mexico has more than 1.5 million Latter-day Saints in nearly 1,900 wards and branches.
