architecture on my mind

Oh man oh man, my brain is all over architecture, pulling it apart and putting it back together to make sense and so forth. My neighbor lives in a 100 year old house with add on's. We helped her tear apart her yucky flooring and 60's thin, tacky wall paneling tonight. I want to tear down the whole house and start over. There are some houses that have had too much done to them them they've lost the integrity to the original idea of the house and/or they just never made sense in the beginning at all.

With architecture in mind, I move to the new Draper, Utah, LDS temple. We've purposely driven from Alpine over the new mountain pass into the top south mountain of Draper to watch the construction and final stages of this new temple over the last year. It's an alpine drive most definately. I love where it sits nestled in the depths of the mountains in this area of Draper. So last saturday it was really fun being there with my sis and her fam, and my little fam, as well as having the presence of my dad and my mom came too in our tour of the new temple. Ironically the weather was a beautiful fog, but it kept us from seeing the outside of the temple to its maximum potential.

The Celestial room was magnificent with the dome a simple yet richly detailed piece and the gold lined walls and the crystal chandeliers equal to any of the most ornate rooms I've seen in my European travels to grand palaces and stately homes. Yet in the Sealing room where a sweet couple around my age explained to the kids and others present, about what the idea of a sealing meant to them in their lives, you could definately feel the presence of the spiritual nature of this temple creation. To be fair, the rest of the temple was lovely in its decor, a lot of art deco, which I love but is similar to other temples that have been built in the last 15 years, specifically the A.F. and Bountiful temples, so was somewhat uneventful. However, the afore mentioned rooms were what made the viewing of the structure for me, and in my weird mind of configuring architectural placement, where the temple was built made sense. It is close to the "heavens" and circling around in the sky's are the beauty of the birds and hidden in the surrounding hills are the innocence of deer as they make their way in and about the hillside terrain they add presense of nature in God's circle of life.

In no way do I want to sound as if I take having the significance and beauty of an LDS temple around our everyday scenery for granted. I have an artists eye, and therefore I critique. The Temple is a work of art to me as well as a spiritual tribute to our Father in Heaven and his work here on earth for all of us. It signify's the beauty of our lives and what we can accomplish only through our gratitude to all that he has given us.