That’s a good question, and I don’t really know. My preliminary thoughts are that the celestial room is somehow supposed to help us perceive the celestial kingdom. The question to ask is, what kind of perception is it? Now, one response to this (and perhaps a valid one), is that there is no real relation between the celestial room and the celstial kingdom because the celestial kingdom transcends all of our attempts to describe it. This however pushes us back to a lower order discussion about our attempts to relate and describe something that is ultimately indescribable.

If we took the other position that the celestial room is a depiction of the CK (as vague a depiction as it would be), we would be more or less still asking the similar question: What type of perception is the celestial room supposed to be?

I agree with the implications of your question–the celestial room seems meant to evoke certain feeling: tranquility, rest, etc. These emotions, it seems, are supposed to come from our auditory capacity (the lack of sound) and our visual sensories (the grandeur of the room). The question to puruse is, how are visual sensories (and out ability to interpret them) shapped by the environment we live in? What are different cross-cultual interpretations of “no sound”? Are we opperating with universal assumptions here? Or how “local” can we go?

On another interesting note, why do we not also rely on our sense of smell to enhance the experience of the celestial room? None of the celestial rooms I’ve been in smell bad, but none of them smell really good either. What does this tell us about our privileging some means of perception above others?

Thanks! I agree, this is great news for Lehi and a great post! I know that even in Provo there are some large, higher-end high-rise condos (well, 5 or so stories, but still…) that are going up in the center of town (new Wells Fargo bldg), that are apparently selling like hotcakes, because people are looking for alternatives to suburbia. I’m astounded that Gehry’s going to do it, and like TT, want to live there already…

Jeb,

Yikes! What constitutes decay? How do you differentiate it from development? And what do you mean about stable structure (physical or social)?

TT and diahman,

I have to side more with diahman on this one. For me the architecture needs to vary, not just the interior. I think Manhattan was a question of exigency and not of aesthetic choice. I read one reviewer’s impression that the celestial room reminded him of a hotel lobby. Which gets us to the question diahman asked: how is our perception of beauty shaped?

One question for diahman: Is the celestial room supposed to “depict” heaven? Or does it remind of heaven in other ways? (Luxury, peace, overstuffed chairs and fake flowers?)

I know I was impressed with the desert feel of the Jordan temple in Utah. At the same time though, my feeling is that this holds true only to a certain degree. In temples outside of the US and Europe I don’t see so much effort to localize the interior. While I speak with limited experience, and there may be a few minor changes, in general I think this holds true. As such, it may raise an interesting point about our aesthetics–how is our peception of beauty shaped? In our attempts to depict Heaven (i.e., the celestial room), what does it mean to have some variation of what it looks like? How much does the outter architecture direct the layout of the interior design?

I also have to disagree with you slightly about the new temple designs. While they are mostly identical on the outside, I think that they do go a great efforts to localize each temple and make it unique. This is true for the new flagship temples in places like Palmyra, Winter Quarters, etc, but also NYC.