The Salt Lake Temple recently found its footing again, five years into a seismic upgrade that is part of the largest preservation project in Utah history.
That doesn’t mean the temple is back on the ground, though. The whole point of the seismic improvements was to build a new type of moat between the pioneer-era temple and the earth to protect it from earthquakes.
Workers recently placed all of the temple’s 185 million pounds on new, seismically upgraded footings and base isolators — components that allow the temple to sway up to five feet in any direction during an earthquake, protecting it from shaking.
“We have been able to successfully load the historic temple onto its new foundations,” said Josh Fenn, vice president and project executive for Jacobson Construction, in a new video released Monday by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Loading the temple on its new foundation was a major milestone. It means the seismic upgrade work has reached its final stages as workers prepare it for a planned six-month open house in 2027.
The Salt Lake Temple originally was built on a sandstone foundation and soil. Now it will sit suspended above the ground on a transfer girder that itself rests on the new footings and base isolators, Jacobson’s Brad Bohne said.
Essentially, the temple has a moat protecting it from the ground, said Andy Kirby, director of historic temple renovations.
The temple is also now tied together and secured to the new, floating foundation by hundreds of cables. Workers bored 46 holes from the top of the temple walls to the foundation and inserted post-tensioning cables tightened to half a million pounds of pressure.
Now when the temple sways safely above the ground in an earthquake, it’s pioneer-built walls will move as one with the foundation and remain stable, too.
Other work underway includes:
- Laying the tile floors around the west baptismal font.
- Reinstallation of stones in their original locations on the northeast tower, some of which are being done by hand. The stones were removed to protect them during the renovation. Each stone is being securely anchored by steel rods.
- Finishing work on the stairway to the Assembly Room.
- Other finishing work throughout the temple, including decorative painting to restore moldings, cornices and pendants in the Celestial Room.
The Riccio family from John Canning Studios is providing their expertise to those efforts, and to apply ultra-thin, 23-karat gold leaf in some areas of the room.
“Gold is a precious metal. There’s a purity to it,” said the company president, John Ricchio. “The yellow, golden color adds emphasis to the warmth of the space, but the idea of purity in gold plays a symbolic role as well as an aesthetic role.”
“It’s been such an honor to be part of something bigger than us,” said art director Jacqueline Riccio.