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PROVO — For architecture and temple lovers, the last few weeks have been a boon.
A "construction cam" allows anyone with an Internet connection to view the hourly progress of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Provo City Center Temple. For those who just want to see the temple finished already, artist Brian Olson has released a 3-D video model of the temple including its final ground plans.
The Provo Tabernacle, located on University Avenue between Center Street and 100 South, caught fire in December 2010, gutting the nearly 115-year-old building. In April 2011, the LDS Church announced the mostly destroyed tabernacle would be restored as a temple.
With the help of a camera mounted catty-corner from the former Provo Tabernacle, one can cure their curiosity about the progress of the Provo City Center Temple construction. With hourly updates, one can watch construction crews start their morning work, equipment move about the site, and, by jumping around the calendar, advancement of the restoration.
Currently, the camera shows the temple shell being raised by stilts. The roof and interior walls of the old tabernacle are gone, the bricks supported by concrete.
Though the navigation of the pictures is a little tricky, the camera has captured images since the end of January, giving you plenty of things to explore and figure out the controls.
If you just want to see what the temple and its grounds will look once the roof is in place, windows are installed, and the landscape completed, Olson has taken the latest city plans for the temple exterior and turned them into a 3-D video rendering.
A fountain, a forest of trees, a maze of sidewalks, and very little surface parking create a miniature Salt Lake Temple Square in Provo's downtown district.
This is the second 3-D rendering Olson has created of the Provo City Center Temple.
The LDS Church has said that though the floorplan will be different to accommodate its new purpose, the building will be restored true to its 1890s state.
Since the project's beginning, great care has been taken to preserve the historical significance of the building and its grounds. In 2012, student crews from Brigham Young University's Office of Public Archaeology unearthed an early baptistry located with fire insurance maps from the 1880s to 1910.
In addition to the baptistry and tabernacle, the site also housed the foundations of an early meeting house and a caretaker's cottage.