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A rendering of the new design of the Provo Utah Temple.

Courtesy Intellectual Reserve

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The Provo Utah Temple, photographed Friday, Aug. 29, 2014.

Grant Hindsley, Daily Herald file photo

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The Provo Utah Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be closing at the end of the day on Saturday, as the temple’s reconstruction will begin shortly.

The reconstruction will be a complete architectural redesign, updating the temple from its unique round base with a center spire to a more modern, rectangular look similar to its sister Ogden Utah Temple and the other surrounding Utah County temples.

The Ogden temple underwent a similar reconstruction in 2011 and was rededicated in 2014.

The closure date comes a month after the dedication of the new Orem temple, which is located on the west side of Interstate 15, about 6 miles away from the Provo Utah Temple. A new temple in Saratoga Springs was dedicated in August 2023 and the Lindon temple — one of six temples currently being built in Utah — began construction in 2022.

Members of the temple’s district are encouraged to attend surrounding temples, the church’s website says, including the nearby Provo City Center Temple and Orem Utah Temple. Other operational temples in Utah County include the Payson and Mount Timpanogos structures.

Some church members have been hesitant about the reconstruction, which includes a complete demolition of the more than 50-year-old building.

After the 2021 announcement, a local group, Preserve the Provo Temple, began advocating for renovation instead of reconstruction.

At the time, the group circulated a petition that garnered just over 1,300 signatures and called for renovations similar to work on the Salt Lake and Manti temples to maintain the Provo temple’s “architectural integrity.”

The church first announced the temple’s reconstruction during the October 2021 general conference. The remodel rendering was released the next month.

The Provo Utah Temple sits on the hill of eastern Provo across from the church’s Missionary Training Center and was first dedicated in 1972 by President Joseph Fielding Smith.

The temple’s original design with a flat, round base and center spire was made to represent the scripture Exodus 13:21, according to the church’s website.

The new temple design also will be without an angel Moroni on the spire, something many of the church’s temples have but is not required.

In a 2021 article announcing the temple’s new design, the Church News wrote that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has “reaffirmed the primary purpose of its temples is to draw people closer to God and His Son Jesus Christ through worship, instruction and unifying sacred ordinances, with the temples’ exterior and interior designs and elements secondary to that purpose.”

The pioneer-era Manti temple also has been under renovation for the last couple of years and its open house will run from March 14 to April 5, with the temple being rededicated April 21.

The Salt Lake Temple also remains under renovation — which first began in late 2019 — and is set to be complete in 2026.

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