the Geometry of the Kirkland Temple

.A reader of this blog asked me to look at the geometry of the Kirkland Mormon Temple in Kirkland, Ohio.  He saw similarities between the geometry of the Cabin at Tuckahoe Plantation and the Temple.

I have not seen the Temple, but HABS drawings are available on the Library of Congress website; and the Kirkland Temple has good exterior and interior pictures on their website. https://www.kirtlandtemple.org/





The Kirkland Temple, built 1833-6, has a design specific to its use, not a traditional church form adapted to a new way of worship. I am not referring to belief, but about how the religious group planned to meet together.The Temple has 3 floors, each for a specific use: the Church floor, the Apostolic floor, the School and Quorum floor,  and the accompanying a Vestibule and Stair Well. This is different from the churches the people who built this would have known.
However, the red organizing diagram for the frame was not new; it was the ancient pattern that the craftsmen had learned as apprentices. They used the Square and  its Lines to plan the facade. The diagonals mark the placement of the Palladian window, the Lines encompass the ellipse in the pediment.



The builders did not use the division of  Lines into thirds. They seem to have preferred dividing in half and then in half again.

I have marked the 'third points' with red circles; the design does not depend on them. I could have left them out of the diagram.
Half the square also determines very little - maybe the sash location of the Gothic windows.  However, the body of the facade is 3/4 of the square, the pediment 1/4. The pitch of the roof is the diagonal from the center to the upper corner.





The  body divided in half - or the square divided into 3/8 and 5/8 - determines the 2nd floor location - the horizontal red dashed line.

For clarity I  have only laid out one quarter of the possible facade Lines - the red square on the lower left.  Half the quarter seems to set the height for the Gothic windows on the first floor. 3/4 of the small square seems to locate the door with its fanlight. The location of the Gothic windows does not quite work - the vertical red dashed lines.
The west elevation is  much the same, not quite symmetrical. The plans show that the windows were set to accommodate the stairs in the Vestibule and the seating the Church and Apostolic spaces.   




  

The plan is a square, solid red lines, and an overlapping 2nd rectangle whose length is determined by the overlapping arcs of its width, dashed red lines.

Again I would like to compliment my analysis by the experience of being there, walking through it as well as around the outside. For example here the 2 overlapping squares seem to include the platforms and stairs in front of the Temple. If I were there I might understand if the stairs had been part of the intention of the original design.





The division of the square into quarters locates the  columns and the beams along the length of  the whole structure. The spacing of the columns across the width probably is 1/4, 2/4, 1/4. The columns in the  interior elevations look wider than they are drawn in plan here.


The 5 columns at the east end (bottom of the  drawing)  support the tower.










The Gothic windows and the Federal doors also use  squares, and their division into halves as the initial layout.  The interior dimensions  - the panes, the panels -  do not seem to follows the same pattern.


 







The Church sanctuary and the Apostolic floor both have a central square flanked with smaller ones on each side. The regular spacing of the columns, the square side aisle bays between them, and the central naves with arched ceilings facing Palladian windows create 2 dramatic spaces. 
I do wish there was more information about the framing. Look at that blank space above the side aisles!

I was curious about the Temple partly because Joseph Smith, Jr. was born in Vermont where I live. I wondered if the framing traditions I see here were used in Kirkland, Ohio. I was curious about what forms the early Mormons used.  I wanted to compare it to the Streetsboro Baptist Church - built about 15 years earlier - near by.  https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2018/04/the-baptist-church-of-streetsboro-ohio.html
I found a use of Practical Geometry that was very basic. Perhaps it allowed untrained members of the community to help with the construction.
From the photographs on the Kirkland Temple website the community seems to have created a striking building with effective spaces. 































The structure was measured in the 1930's for the US Dept of the Interior; the drawings are now part of the HABS collection in the Library of Congress. 

Practical Geometry - drawing the diagrams, #1

The participants at the hands-on sessions I taught on Practical Geometry  at the 2016 PTN Workshops, asked me to post the diagrams for the basic geometries they worked with.
Here is the first.

How to divide a square into thirds:

We used graph paper for the first geometry so everyone could see the lines develope into a pattern. Everyone could count the squares to be sure they were following directions.

1.  Draw a square 12 units wide and 12 units long. label the corners A, B, C, D.

Add the diagonals - the lines from one corner cross the center to the far corner. A to C; B to D.
The lines will cross in the center of the square. Count the units to prove this to yourself.
Label the center of the square E.

Divide the square in half vertically, F to H - follow the line the graph paper.
Divide the square in half horizontally, G to I - follow the line on the graph paper.

This is the basic pattern. The square can now be divided into 3, 4, or 5 (or more)  equal rectangles as needed.


2. To divide the square into thirds:
Add a line from each corner to the middle of the opposite side. A to G and B to I.
These lines cross the original pattern.

K and L, if extended parallel to A-B, would define a rectangle that is 1/3 of the whole square.




A rule in geometry is that there must be 2 points to establish a line.
 Below is a diagram of  how the diagonals from the corner of a square to the middle of the opposite side give 2 points for the lines which divide a square into three rectangles of equal size.



This division of the square into thirds is often found in pre-Industrial Revolution design.
I do not think framers drew out the whole diagram on a sheathing board or a framing floor. Rather because the diagram was common knowledge they just drew the parts they needed.


An example:

At the workshop I taught the application of this geometric pattern using the plans and elevations from a cabin at Tuckahoe  -   http://www.jgrarchitect.com/2014/06/cabin-tuckahoe-plantation-goochland.html.

 

 

The end wall of the cabin is  2/3 of a square. The roof  begins on the 2/3 line. Its pitch follows the diagonals of the upper square. the windows, doors and fireplace are centered on the square. That's all.

I then showed the group how Owen Biddle used the same geometry to tell a mason where windows and doors were to be placed.
The  elevation and floor plan are both composed of 2 squares. On both the window placement is one side of the center line. The  diagonals from corner to center call out the window width ( on the elevation and the interior partition on the floor plan.
In the floor plan I have used a dashed line to note the lines dictating the window width.  
http://www.jgrarchitect.com/2015/11/owen-biddles-plan-and-elevation-for.html
 

 

 

I did not include diagrams showing how master joiners laid out squares bounded by circles, bounded by squares to set out the dimensions and relationships  between parts of doors and architraves for Georgian meeting houses.
Shown here is how the surround of the main door for Rockingham Meeting House, Rockingham, VT, may have been laid out.

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2014/04/rockingham-meetiinghouse-rockingham-vt.html




The carpenters and masons called these geometries 'lines' They would have have been explained verbally as a master taught an apprentice.  Sebastiano Serlio and James Gibbs both refer to 'lines' - see my post  http://www.jgrarchitect.com/2017/04/serlio-writes-about-practical-geometry.html