Ogden's Spaceport is Closing

Where'd the Spaceship Go?

This is kinda sad news, if you ask me.

Color me different, but I’ve always liked the look of the Ogden and Provo LDS temples. They’re unique. Different. Modern. Space-shippy. Something Glen A. Larson could be proud of.

But now the LDS church is going to completely remodel the Ogden temple’s exterior, transforming it from a nice bit of ‘60s art into, well, what I call a modern “box lunch” temple. Borr-ing.

I like that the upper portion of the current temple looks like it’s floating above the earth. I like its round shape that makes it look like it’s ready for the Columbia Exposition or the New York Worlds’ Fair. With this remodel, there's absolutely zero chance a sequel to "Men in Black" will ever be filmed in Ogden. Provo, hold on to your temple as currently designed; you may yet have a chance.

Thankfully, the church isn’t touching the similar Provo temple. At least for now. When I was at the MTC, I enjoyed the thought that after I walked up the hill to the temple and went inside, that we’d blast off into the outer stratosphere on a technically unexplainable journey to confer, converse, and hobnob with, well, whomever else was up there. (It has been noted in a study, I'll see if I can dredge up a link, that Mormons are among those least likely of religious adherents to be disturbed if intelligent life is found on other planets. I always assumed such without the study, and that the Ogden and Provo temples were in fact spaceship prototypes we'd use to hie ourselves to Kolob when it came time to hie.)

I don’t know why a lot of people have that fear and loathing of 60s and 70s architecture, especially really overblown architecture as is used in these two temples. I think it’s great. These buildings actually look different. They’re not the same “box with a steeple” that is so favored in temple architecture today. (If you ask me, the temples they ought to be updating are the inverted pizza box temples, such as they have in Boise.) But listen to me, the little LDS temple architecture critic.

Just don’t mess with the Idaho Falls temple. That’ll really get me riled up.