Salt Lake Tabernacle
Domed 1867 assembly hall on Temple Square, famous for its lattice-truss roof and pipe organ.
The Tabernacle was built between 1864 and 1867 on Temple Square as a meeting hall for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Its most remarkable feature is the roof: a self-supporting lattice truss spanning about 150 feet across an oval plan roughly 250 feet long, devised by the bridge builder Henry Grow and originally pinned together with wooden dowels and rawhide where iron was scarce. The dome rests on 44 sandstone piers, leaving the interior free of columns and giving the hall its unusual acoustics.
The building is a National Historic Landmark and has been recognised by the American Society of Civil Engineers as a historic civil engineering landmark. It seats several thousand and houses an organ of 11,623 pipes, rebuilt and enlarged over many decades, whose gilded case of wooden pipes forms the backdrop to the choir seating. Free thirty-minute organ recitals are given almost every day, and visitors may sit in on the weekly rehearsal of the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square.
Highlights
- Self-supporting lattice-truss dome spanning about 150 feet
- Organ of 11,623 pipes behind a gilded wooden case
- Free daily thirty-minute organ recitals
- Public Thursday evening rehearsals of the Tabernacle Choir
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