Salt Lake Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Utah
The Salt Lake Tabernacle, also known as the Mormon Tabernacle, is located on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah along with the Salt Lake Assembly Hall and Salt Lake Temple.
The Tabernacle was built to house meetings for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS church), and was the location of the semi-annual LDS General Conference for 132 years. However, because of the growth in the number of conference attendees, general conference was moved to the new and larger LDS Conference Center in 2000. In the October 1999 General Conference, church president Gordon B. Hinckley gave a talk honoring the Tabernacle and introducing the new Conference Center. Now a historic building on Temple Square, the Salt Lake Tabernacle is still used for overflow crowds during general conference. The Tabernacle is the home of the world-renowned Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and was the previous home of the Utah Symphony Orchestra until the construction of Abravanel Hall. It is the historic broadcasting home for the radio and television program known as Music and the Spoken Word.
The organ in the Tabernacle has the organ case positioned at the west end above the choir seats, and is the focal point of the Tabernacle's interior. The original organ was made by Joseph H. Ridges in 1867 and contained 700 pipes. The organ has been rebuilt several times with the total pipe count being 11,623, making the Tabernacle organ one of the largest pipe organs in the world. The current organ is the masterwork of G. Donald Harrison of the Aeolian-Skinner organ company, and was completed in 1948. The organ was renovated and restored in 1989 with a few minor changes and additions. Interestingly, the largest 32' display pipes in the façade are made of wood and were constructed in the same manner as the balcony columns.
Built at a time before electronics and audio amplifiers, the Tabernacle was constructed with remarkable acoustic qualities[citation needed] so the entire congregation could hear sermons given there, mainly for General Conference. The roof was constructed in a three-dimensional ellipse with the pulpit at one focus of the ellipse. The elliptical concept came from Brigham Young, the Latter-day Saint prophet. The elliptical design causes a large portion of the sound from the pulpit end of the building to be concentrated and projected to the focus at the opposite end of the building. Furthermore, the roof rests on sandstone piers around the outside, without any interior supports that would impede the sound waves.
Several years after the initial construction was completed, Truman O. Angell was brought in to further improve the building's acoustics, and was responsible for adding the gallery (balcony) in 1870 that resolved the outstanding acoustical issues. The building has an international reputation as a nearly acoustically perfect building. It is common for LDS missionary tour guides to demonstrate the acoustic properties of the Tabernacle by dropping a pin on the pulpit or tearing a newspaper there, which can be plainly heard throughout the building.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_Tabernacle
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...
Salt Lake Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Utah
The Salt Lake Tabernacle, also known as the Mormon Tabernacle, is located on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah along with the Salt Lake Assembly Hall and Salt Lake Temple.
The Tabernacle was built to house meetings for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS church), and was the location of the semi-annual LDS General Conference for 132 years. However, because of the growth in the number of conference attendees, general conference was moved to the new and larger LDS Conference Center in 2000. In the October 1999 General Conference, church president Gordon B. Hinckley gave a talk honoring the Tabernacle and introducing the new Conference Center. Now a historic building on Temple Square, the Salt Lake Tabernacle is still used for overflow crowds during general conference. The Tabernacle is the home of the world-renowned Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and was the previous home of the Utah Symphony Orchestra until the construction of Abravanel Hall. It is the historic broadcasting home for the radio and television program known as Music and the Spoken Word.
The organ in the Tabernacle has the organ case positioned at the west end above the choir seats, and is the focal point of the Tabernacle's interior. The original organ was made by Joseph H. Ridges in 1867 and contained 700 pipes. The organ has been rebuilt several times with the total pipe count being 11,623, making the Tabernacle organ one of the largest pipe organs in the world. The current organ is the masterwork of G. Donald Harrison of the Aeolian-Skinner organ company, and was completed in 1948. The organ was renovated and restored in 1989 with a few minor changes and additions. Interestingly, the largest 32' display pipes in the façade are made of wood and were constructed in the same manner as the balcony columns.
Built at a time before electronics and audio amplifiers, the Tabernacle was constructed with remarkable acoustic qualities[citation needed] so the entire congregation could hear sermons given there, mainly for General Conference. The roof was constructed in a three-dimensional ellipse with the pulpit at one focus of the ellipse. The elliptical concept came from Brigham Young, the Latter-day Saint prophet. The elliptical design causes a large portion of the sound from the pulpit end of the building to be concentrated and projected to the focus at the opposite end of the building. Furthermore, the roof rests on sandstone piers around the outside, without any interior supports that would impede the sound waves.
Several years after the initial construction was completed, Truman O. Angell was brought in to further improve the building's acoustics, and was responsible for adding the gallery (balcony) in 1870 that resolved the outstanding acoustical issues. The building has an international reputation as a nearly acoustically perfect building. It is common for LDS missionary tour guides to demonstrate the acoustic properties of the Tabernacle by dropping a pin on the pulpit or tearing a newspaper there, which can be plainly heard throughout the building.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_Tabernacle
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...