AIA Utah Annual Conference September 25-26 PUB 5 2024-2025 ISSUE 1
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Reflexion is a publication of the Utah Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. www.aia.org/utah AIA Utah 280 S. 400 W., Ste. 150 Salt Lake City, UT 84101 President Chamonix Larsen, AIA, LEED AP, CxA+BE President-Elect Whitney Ward, AIA Secretary Natalie Shutts-Bank, AIA Treasurer Libby Haslam, AIA Editor Frances Pruyn, CPSM Staff Executive Director Angie Harris Roberts Programs & Office Manager Joe Mangum ©2024 AIA Utah | The newsLINK Group LLC. All rights reserved. Reflexion is published quarterly by The newsLINK Group LLC for AIA Utah and is the official publication for this association. The information contained in this publication is intended to provide general information for review, consideration and education. The contents do not constitute legal advice and should not be relied on as such. If you need legal advice or assistance, it is strongly recommended that you contact an attorney as to your circumstances. The statements and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the AIA Utah, its board of directors or the publisher. Likewise, the appearance of advertisements within this publication does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation of any product or service advertised. Reflexion is a collective work, and as such, some articles are submitted by authors who are independent of the AIA Utah. While AIA Utah encourages a first-print policy, in cases where this is not possible, every effort has been made to comply with any known reprint guidelines or restrictions. Content may not be reproduced or reprinted without prior written permission. For further information, please contact the publisher at (855) 747-4003. 4 President’s Message Focusing on Our Values 6 Member Spotlight Dwight Yee 7 AIA Utah Annual Conference September 25-26 8 Keynote Speaker: Ted Flato, FAIA 10 Keynote Speaker: Lorcan O’Herlihy, FAIA 11 Keynote Speaker: Ellen Dunham-Jones 12 Legends Timothy F. Thomas, AIA 16 The Plat of Zion and Urban Development in Salt Lake City 20 The Salt Lake City Second Century Plan 23 Downtown Salt Lake Urban Renewal, Public Private Partnerships and the Smith Entertainment Group CONTENTS 3
FOCUSING on Our Values CHAMONIX LARSEN, AIA, LEED AP, CxA+BE PRESIDENT, AIA UTAH AIA Utah is here to make architects better at what they love to do. It is our mission. That can mean a lot of things. There are likely millions of ways AIA Utah can help members. So, we are going to focus. Focus time, money and the talents of the Big Team (dedicated board members, committee chairs and committee members, partners and staff) toward our values: design excellence, integrity, stewardship, inclusivity and engagement. Our Big Team recently spent time developing initiatives to support our strategic plan. We have a handful of initiatives to dial in, and I am sharing three of the most widely supported: Strategic Focus 1: Get everyone into more architecture and design. And when I say “into” I am being quite literal. We want to provide more tours. This can be part of an educational opportunity, social networking event or both, but our goal is to see the fruits of our labor firsthand — to celebrate, to learn, to see beautiful solutions — and connect along the way. Strategic Focus 2: Communicate our annual doings. In other words, that calendar of anticipated events that brings us together should be easy for our members, supporters and collaborators to find and depend on. Clarification around our annual cycle can also help each committee commit to working for membership strategically. Strategic Focus 3: Unite our membership to make an impact for good. I believe AIA Utah members are proud to be part of AIA Utah and see the organization being able amplify a voice and pull our resources to support change. The amazing work AIA Utah leaders, volunteers and staff have contributed time to address (such as supporting the preservation of Abravanel Hall, advocating for policies that are inclusive and give firms access to the best talent in the world, and supporting initiatives that help improve public health) are activating our membership to discuss and develop our voice as a chapter, and as the discipline leadership on community issues. It is clear our members want us to do more of this. I believe it is an exciting way to build our Big Team, aligning with what AIA Utah members are passionate about. So, dear member reader, what we need now is you! Leverage your membership to the fullest. Come to tours, give a tour, join your network of colleagues as often as you can, and build the common voice of architects in Utah. I know we’ll be better architects with you on the Big Team! Chamonix Larsen 4 REFLEXION
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Dwight Yee Time is valuable; why AIA? Through participating in the AIA, I have found colleagues to learn from, gained access to resources for professional development, and through participating with the National Small Firm Exchange, met a community that has helped me better understand how to operate my business. Sometimes it just helps to know you’re not the only one facing certain challenges/issues/frustrations. Favorite Utah space: Abravanel Hall. The performances, the experience of approaching the building and the lobby lit up with people filling its walkways and stairs builds excitement and energy for the event. I don’t think people realize how deliberate the entrance procession is. A number of different elements — the angled approach to the front doors, the glitter of light off the gold leaf balconies, the ability to see through the lobby — work together to help create an air of spectacle and celebration. Favorite book: “Manual of Section” by Lewis, Tsurumaki and Lewis. It is a great reference book when I teach design studios, and the drawings are absolutely stunning. Mantra: “Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.” — John Quincy Adams 6 REFLEXION
AIA Utah Annual Conference September 25-26 University of Utah | Garff Executive Education Building Sept. 25: Building Tours Morning Tours U of U Einar Nielsen Fieldhouse Renovation Site Tour U of U West Village Housing Phase 2 Construction Site Tour Afternoon Tours U of U Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine Construction Site Tour U of U William Stewart Building for Applied Sciences Construction Site Tour Sept. 26: Presentations from Exemplary Practitioners 8:00 a.m. Welcome, Registration and Breakfast 9:00 a.m. Keynote: Ted Flato, FAIA, Lake | Flato Architects 10:15 a.m. “The Future of Sustainability is Collaboration: A Panel Discussion” 11:45 a.m. Lunch Break & AIA Utah Annual Meeting 1:00 p.m. Break 1:30 p.m. The State of the Utah Economy: Maddy Oritt, Ph.D., Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute 2:30 p.m. Keynote: Lorcan O’Herlihy, FAIA, Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects 3:30 p.m. AIA Utah Committee Overview 4:00 p.m. Keynote: Ellen Dunham Jones, AIA, Georgia Institute of Technology 5:00 p.m. AIA Utah Architecture Awards Opening Reception 6:00 p.m. AIA Utah Design Awards Discounts for AIA members registered at AIAUtah.org. BEAUTY | INNOVATION | IMPACT Registration is now open for the AIA Utah Annual Conference. Join us for two days of tours, keynote speakers, panel discussions, the AIA Utah Annual Meeting and the AIA Utah Architecture Awards presentation. 7
Ted Flato, FAIA, is a Keynote Speaker for the 2024 AIA Utah Fall Conference. He will be speaking at 9:00 a.m. We chatted with him about his passions and hopes for the field. The following are excerpts from our conversation. What is your current passion? My passions are all over the place these days. Within the office, I enjoy working with a host of younger architects on a myriad of projects in a huge range of locations and climates. I see these “new exciting projects” as opportunities to explore how their unique conditions will allow us to push our “practical/ sustainable design philosophy” in new directions (some radically different, some subtle refinements) and to leverage the unique perspectives of this talented younger generation of architects and clients. And I am anxious and passionate about maintaining “firm wide ownership” in our work, and I see, as we continue to grow (at 150 plus architects in two offices and a number of satellite work conditions), how critical cross-disciplinary design reviews and office-wide design discussions are for real cross-pollination and group ownership is for our firm’s continued success. Beyond the office, I am very focused on the environmental challenges facing our rivers and springs in central Texas. Coming from a ranching family (my German ancestors were some of the first ranchers in the central part of Texas) with a place on the headwaters of the Nueces River that has been in the my family since the 30s, I have been extremely concerned with the triple threat facing our water resources in central Texas: climate change (a four-year drought in our part of the state), a rapidly expanding and thirsty population in the Austin/San Antonio area, and state government that prioritizes political posturing over real policy making. With those challenges in mind, I started a landowners group, the Headwaters Alliance, to Ted Flato, FAIA Ted Flato, FAIA, has received critical acclaim for his straight-forward regional designs which incorporate indigenous building forms and materials and respond to the context of their unique landscapes. With partner David Lake, he was named 2024’s Gold Medal recipient, the highest honor conferred by the American Institute of Architects. By applying sustainable strategies to a wide variety of building types and scales, Ted seeks to conserve energy and natural resources while creating healthy built environments. His interest in a myriad of building systems has resulted in projects ranging from mass timber, prefabrication and 3D printing, among other building systems. In addition to his notable residential projects for Lake|Flato, Ted’s commercial work includes the transformation of a former Air Force base into a 550,000 sq. ft. regenerative campus for Arizona Polytechnic University, the LEED Platinum Shangri La Gardens in Orange, Texas, and a new mass timber academic building for Trinity University that pays homage to its mid-century campus, designed by mentor and Texas modernist, O’Neil Ford. Ted’s commitment to sustainable environments does not end with his designs. His notoriety has earned him invitations to lecture across the nation on subjects such as healthy buildings and sustainable strategies, and healthy office culture, among many other topics. KEYNOTE SPEAKER 8 REFLEXION
Building connections from concept to completion.™ crceng.com | (801) 466-1699 bring a politically disparate group of “river stewards” together to address “our common unifying concern” — that our central Texas rivers and springs, the lifeblood of the hill country, may not be flowing for future generations unless we do something. We are making some success on a regional basis, where solutions and problem-solving trump politics, and, hopefully, will have a trickle-up effect within the state before it is too late. But in any case, we are using these real challenges to bring people together. It is a long journey, but important to get the ball rolling. What do you wish you knew when you were a young practitioner? It is a long game, the making of good architecture. It takes a lot of patience, collaboration and thoughtful persuasion to move opportunities to their best possible place. And remember, it is incremental, each project and collaboration grows into the next, and though it is important to be passionate and push hard for “what is right,” it is equally important not to overthink your opportunities. Because if you think of it as a long game, you will have many new opportunities in the future. Where do you hope the field is going, and how can we help it get there? We must, as architects, be part of the global effort to solve climate change. We cannot afford to get it wrong, we must be striving to not only make thoughtful sustainable and adaptable buildings, but we should be making advocates of our clients and fellow architects in the process. The days of building buildings that are torn down in 20 years because they are out of style, not adaptable or are not sustainable for the long haul, are over. The world desperately needs our leadership. 9
KEYNOTE SPEAKER Lorcan O’Herlihy, FAIA, is an architect and urban designer with offices in Los Angeles, California, and Detroit, Michigan. As founding principal and creative director, Lorcan has led Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects (LOHA) in building a robust portfolio of work rooted in embracing architecture’s role as a catalyst for change. Enacting a powerful alliance of inventive designs with vigorous social ideals, O’Herlihy’s work prospers whether it is supportive affordable housing in South Los Angeles, working with grassroots neighborhood advocates in Detroit, or designing cultural institutions like the Chapman University dance school. In addition to building over 100 projects across three continents, Lorcan has been published in over 20 countries and recognized with 200-plus national and international awards, including the 2023 AIACA Maybeck Award, 2021 AIALA Gold Medal, Architect’s Newspaper Best of Practice North America Firm Award, the AIALA Firm of the Year Award, the AIA California Distinguished Practice Award, and was ranked the No. 1 Design Firm in the U.S. by Architect Magazine in 2018. Lorcan O’Herlihy had a new book come out with Rizzoli, “Building in Place: Architecture Rooted in Context and Social Equity,” as of Sept. 17. Lorcan O’Herlihy, FAIA, is a Keynote Speaker for the 2024 AIA Utah Fall Conference. He will be speaking at 1:30 p.m. We chatted with him about his passions and hopes for the field. The following are excerpts from our conversation. What is your current passion? Ever since I was a young architect, the desire to be creative and deeply embedded in the world of ideas is what has kept me going every day. That has never changed over the years, of which I’m forever grateful. What do you wish you knew when you were a young practitioner? As a young architect, I was very happy where I was at the time and loved what I was doing. I started studying architecture at University at 16 years old and was thrilled to be engaged with drawings and creating ideas. The one thing I would say to a young architect is to have patience and perseverance. Those are two key elements that resonate with me today, and which I would tell a younger architect. It’s a long journey and you’re learning as you go along, which is so wonderful about architecture. Where do you hope the field is going, and how can we help it get there? I think it’s relevant and important to do work of consequence. The role of the architect is to embrace complexity of political, economic and social forces and to see them as assets toward a more creative solution instead of as limits to the work. Lorcan O’Herlihy, FAIA 10 REFLEXION
KEYNOTE SPEAKER Ellen Dunham-Jones is a professor of architecture and directs the MS in urban design at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. She hosts the “REDESIGNING CITIES” podcast series and was recognized in 2017 and again in the 2023 poll by Planetizen as one of the 100 most influential urbanists ever. She is co-author with June Williamson of a pair of pioneering and award-winning books: “Case Studies in Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Strategies for Urgent Challenges” (Wiley, 2021) and “Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs” (Wiley, 2009, 2011). Their documentation of successful retrofits of aging, automobile-oriented shopping malls, business parks, etc. into more sustainable places has been featured in The New York Times, TED, NPR and other prominent venues. She is a Fellow of the Congress for the New Urbanism as well as the Brook Byers Institute of Sustainable Systems, maintains a unique database on suburban retrofits and trends, lectures and consults widely while researching how to prepare communities for autonomous vehicles. Ellen Dunham-Jones is a Keynote Speaker for the 2024 AIA Utah Fall Conference. She will be speaking at 4:00 p.m. We chatted with her about her career and goals for the field. The following are excerpts from our conversation. What is your current passion? As much as I love well-designed buildings, I’m passionate about the social, environmental and economic impacts of well‑designed urban form. It hardly matters how beautiful or high‑performing an individual building is if you have to drive through a sad, unjust, ugly and toxic public realm to get there. What do you wish you knew when you were a young practitioner? I wish I had learned how to talk comfortably about money. As both a woman and a WASP, I was taught to NOT talk about money and to simply accept whatever salary was offered and assume it was fair. In addition, as a solo practitioner, I felt guilty and/or unworthy charging clients for every hour I put in. Now, as an educator, I insist on having my students rehearse how to counteroffer. Where do you hope the field is going, and how can we help it get there? I hope that the field is better engaged with the pressing challenges facing the world today and architectural pedagogy is re‑establishing the relevance of architecture to non-architects. Instead of teaching our young an elite, internalized discourse, we need to better prepare them to communicate and collaborate with the general public, as well as with the builders, policy makers and scientists. They greatly need architects to apply their design and visioning talents to adapt to climate change, integrate equity and affordability, and revitalize and repair underperforming buildings, communities and ecosystems. Ellen DunhamJones 11
LEGENDS Timothy F. Thomas, AIA INTERVIEWED BY FRAN PRUYN, CPSM As part of our ongoing series of interviews with architectural legends, we are proud to present this interview with Timothy F. Thomas, AIA. We spoke about his lengthy career in architecture and the projects he’s most proud of. We hope you enjoy learning more about Tim as much as we did. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Tim Thomas is a very well‑regarded architect who specializes in medical and laboratory research facilities. A former president of the AIA Utah, he was one of the founders of Thomas Petersen Hammond, a firm known as research facility designers and planners. Spurred by a desire to widen their client base(s), Thomas Petersen Hammond and Jensen Hammond partnered to pursue a project at the University of Utah Medical Center. That successful venture led to the eventual merger of the two firms that became Architectural Nexus. Since Tim is widely known in the community for his generosity and humanity, it makes sense that his body of work is so user-focused. When did you decide to become an architect? In high school. My father was an architect, and I enjoyed being around his office, his clientele and the individuals that worked for him. Even though my father did not want me to become an architect, I persuaded myself that it was a profession I wanted to invest my life in. Did I realize then the scope of what the profession entailed? I had some idea. But over time, I became aware of the good things and some of the more difficult attributes of practicing architecture. Why did he not want you to become an architect? I don’t have a really good answer. I do know that he did not want me to become an architect and thought I should become a structural engineer. But you convinced yourself, if not him? Yes. The next interface I had with architecture was at the University of Utah School of Architecture. The very first day at the school, an individual was talking to a group of 45 students entering the first year. He said to us, “Look to your right, to your left, and upon graduation, these individuals will not be here because of the rigorous nature of the school.” What inspired you to keep going? I enjoyed the process. I enjoyed being given a client who had a list of needs and wants and learning the differences. The critiques and the dialogues with the instructors in the college were meaningful. I was always excited about graduating and entering the profession. I think I ultimately graduated first in my class. Of the 45 that I started with, there were seven who graduated. This calls into question the effectiveness of the schooling process. Perhaps if it were more effective, there may have been more 12 REFLEXION
people graduating in my class, or it could have been the quality of the students. When I was going to school, I had the opportunity to work for Sir Frederick Gibberd, a storied architect in England. He was knighted by the Queen. My wife and I were newly married and spent a summer in London. I worked on a nuclear power plant in his office. The engineering attributes of that project were certainly not in my purview, but I did have input on the architectural expression of what was occurring in the guts of it. From that project, I learned how important it is to rely on the expertise of structural, mechanical, electrical and civil engineers. You have to hire the best to ensure you’ll become ultimately successful and avoid problems with those disciplines. Having really good people to work with was a joy: creating something that fulfilled the agenda of a client. In my practice, I also specialized in research projects, medical research and physical science research. I specialized in laboratories. You graduated and what happened next? I graduated in 1968 and went to work for an excellent architectural firm, Edwards and Daniels. I had a nice relationship with those individuals as mentors. Then I went to work for Richard Prowse, the developer of Prowsewood, to design their projects and augment their in-house capacity for plans and specs of specific unit types as they spun off their product to other locations. Then, that became a little tedious. In 1973, after spending enough time to qualify and pass the Architectural Record Exams, Stephen Peterson, who I graduated with, another graduating student, Jack Hammond, and I decided to hang our own shingle. Had you always wanted to go out on your own? Yes. I enjoyed the experience of working for others and learning things that I wanted to do and things I didn’t want to do. But I thought it was the best way to manage the outcomes because having someone looking over your shoulder was, in some instances, less than optimal. So, we practiced as Thomas Peterson Hammond for a number of years. How did you get your clients? I worked at the University of Utah with individuals in Campus Planning and Design on smaller projects. The individuals that I worked for had smaller projects and had both feet on the floor. They knew what they wanted and what they needed. I listened carefully and programmed what we were going to accomplish and had them sign off. I think I gained a reputation of being a responsive architect. My first large standalone project was the University of Utah’s Biomedical Polymer Research Building. It was the first project on the campus that had facilities designed for three separate colleges: Medicine, Pharmacy and Engineering. It is the architect’s responsibility to equip the building to not only fulfill the needs and desires of the current occupants from those three colleges, but the future, because change is the name of the game. That was one of the successful attributes of that first project. How did the three partners distribute the responsibilities? A majority of my practice was pretty specialized, and so I think my interface with Steve and Jack was somewhat limited because their portfolios didn’t really align themselves with research projects. We ended up needing a business manager who managed the practice’s funding and cash flow. Steve handled mostly the hiring and firing. I remember Jack tried to fire somebody and at the end of their conversation, the employee really didn’t understand that he was fired. Clear communication was a cornerstone of my agenda with my clients because without it, you create a situation with unfulfilled expectations. We have expectations. Your client has expectations. Without resolution, you’re going to wish you had communication habits that were clear. Talk about your merger with Jensen Haslem. We were in competition with Jensen Haslem, and there was kind of a combination of circumstances that brought us to joining our firms. I realized that in Jensen Haslem, there were individuals whose expertise I admired. There was a general contractor who, in talking with the gorillas in the room at the university, suggested if we teamed Jensen Haslem, we’d have a really good shot at a new project at the university hospital. We decided to partner, and we executed the Critical Care Pavilion at the university hospital. After that we went after a hospital project in Durango, Colorado, and we were successful in getting it. As I understand, that hospital in Durango remains one of the more profitable hospitals. We worked hard at an efficient layout so that any one department could expand without affecting other departments, which is a historic problem in hospitals. We have more patients needing this service, and the department is kind of landlocked. How do you deal with that? There’s a domino effect. You have to move some people out to make room 13
So, you officially merged and that expanded your marketing and project capacities. How did it all play out for you? For me, personally, it was all positive. I don’t think any architectural firm is free of cash flow issues, or is free of employee performance problems, or carving out time to work with marketing staff because you’re so involved with the current project on your table. There’s always kind of an ebb and flow of productive versus not so productive activities. Part of the practice of architecture that I miss the most is working with the individuals who will use what we, together, designed: the architect, the engineers and the client group involved in a research project. I enjoyed making sure the clients were happy with the suggestions we made to streamline their activities and to make them as productive as possible. In the Biomedical Polymer project, we carefully studied with the structural engineers the vibration requirements that needed to be in place for things like the robotic mapping of the human genome, which was one of the research activities that was in there. We had all kinds of machine labs, and we had an individual who was studying how to interface an artificial eye with the brain. It was so fun for me, as a lead architect in these research projects, to get on the ground floor of all of these cutting-edge research protocols that we were going to accommodate in these new buildings. It was just an enjoyable experience to interface with these brilliant minds that had invested their lives in various attributes of research — for me to have the opportunity to talk to them and to try and get the feel for what they were trying to accomplish, and to accommodate for this to go; all those issues about designing a hospital to accommodate changing needs. And the same holds true with laboratories. One of the attributes of a successful laboratory is that all of the utilities are brought to a lab. The original occupant might not need ionized water, but you bring it there anyway; over time, eventually somebody will need that. And if it’s available, then the set up for a new client is diminished. It is important to create a lab that serves the next group that comes in so that the money spent upfront isn’t lost in remodeling. Things change a lot and I think the success of a building is the degree to which it can respond to change. their needs to the point where they could give me a great recommendation for the next person that I had the opportunity to work for. Talk about changes that occurred over your career. I’ve had a long successful career so the answer is not straightforward. I’m building my own coffin. And I want to take with me things that meant something to me. It’s 90% there and I am equipping it with my harmonica and my fly rod. I built my own house, so I’ve got the tool belt and the hammer that I used and just a bunch of things that that were meaningful in my life. I am also taking mechanical pencils and triangles and a slide rule. I’ve got a circular slide rule and a kind of normal sliding slide rule. I’m taking a bunch of stuff in my coffin that I used to earn a living. I’m not taking a computer. So, in answer to your question about what changed: the technology of the silicon chip. It impacted my ability to create a design that responds to the dialogue that I had with clients. It transitioned from my early days as an architect, when I was doing drawings and specs, to having to rely on an individual who was brought up using computers. I can’t count the number of New Year’s resolutions I made every year. It started with, “I’m going to learn how to use this apparatus for more than word processing and use it to draw with.” It was a disappointing New Year’s resolution, because I never had the time to devote to just saying, “Okay, time out. I’m going to take a month and have somebody smart on this teach me how to do it.” I was still making sketches and floor plans on fodder that I could turn over to a couple 14 REFLEXION
I advise doing your best work every day with people that you love to work with. of people who could put it in context and into a device that printed it out. I remember we had one of the first CAD machines that could make a drawing and send it to a printer. This printer was using ink pens and it would start down in this corner and you could just watch this pen, start drawing the floorplan, and then it would stop working here and it would go up here and draw. I would ask the Computer Smart Guy, “How come it didn’t finish what’s down here?” He didn’t know. But it was interesting, to say the least, to see the early application of computers and how I interfaced with it. I think if I had any success in that transition, it was having trusted individuals I could give a sketch to and they could configure it and ask questions. The rapport between me and a CAD drafter was as important to the development of a project as the communication between me and a client. Were there any disappointments along the way? Other than a contract dispute I had on my last project, I don’t think I had disappointments that were lingering at all. I just enjoyed practicing architecture to a great extent. Maybe one of the things that defined my approach to life is my first wife dying of cancer. She was a wonderful person. That was a huge disappointment to me, to have the love of my life pass away. That experience taught me that you have problems and you have to increase your ability to deal with them. That was a pretty tough nut to swallow. I’ve run nine marathons in St. George. I happened to be running next to a guy from Hawaii, and I was feeling it and he was feeling it. He said, “You know, when I get to these points in a marathon I think, ‘What is the worst thing that I have had to deal with in my life?’ and compare it to what we’re experiencing at this juncture. This doesn’t seem to be as much of a deal as it might otherwise.” I always remember that and think of the passing of my wife. Running the marathons wasn’t that tough. I think my mentality was tempered to a degree by disappointments outside of the practice of architecture. What advice do you have for people launching their careers in architecture? Aligning yourself with clients who have integrity, partners who have integrity and people in the office who have integrity. I advise doing your best work every day with people that you love to work with. Because if you go to work every day and you don’t love the people that you’re working with, it’s more difficult. And I think love is an appropriate term. This is not romantic love, obviously, but it’s the joy that one feels when one’s effort is appreciated by the people you work with, and by your family and your clients. If you’re not finding that type of fulfillment where you’re at, you ought to cast elsewhere to determine if the problem is yours or somebody else’s. To view the full interview, scan the QR code. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=vO_L_HrpeY0 15
The Plat of Zion and Urban Development in Salt Lake City BY BRENDA CASE SCHEER, FAIA, FAICP Excerpted from Utah Historic Quarterly, Volume 90, No. 3 Salt Lake City has one of the most unique origin stories of any city in the United States. Not only is the story unusual and well documented, but the plan and layout of the city remain one of a kind. Any observant visitor will note the unusual width of the streets and sometimes hear the persistent myth, attributed to Brigham Young, that they were designed to be large enough to turn around a team of oxen.1 But Salt Lake City has many other unique qualities in its physical plan, which are hard to discover without research. These include its vast extent, the very large blocks, and the very large initial lots, which were driven by religious intentions as well as the model of the Plat of Zion. The origins of Salt Lake City date to 1847 with the arrival of a small band of pioneers led by Brigham Young in the Salt Lake Valley. There, in isolation from their detractors, pioneers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) laid out a beautiful city “foursquare” to the world. It was to be a righteous place to invite the “gathering” of the faithful from all over the world in the last (latter) days before the second coming of Christ.2 The geographical calling of the Latter‑day Saints had been the establishment of a place they called the “City of Zion,” a concept that was both physical and metaphysical. Zion was to be the center of a series of cities and villages organized as righteous and wholesome places where the Saints could live out the principles of their faith.3 The location in the mountain west was a spiritual compromise. Although Smith had located the City of Zion very specifically in Independence, Missouri, by divine revelation, the Saints were unable to settle there, due to the violence that frequently erupted when they encountered more traditional Christian settlers. After Smith was murdered by a mob, the Saints, then located in Illinois, determined to find a safer venue for Zion. The highly isolated territory on the western frontier became a suitable alternative to gather the faithful and organize a settlement system. The initial difficulty of reaching the location and its ecological hostility to settlement (a high desert) formed a layer of protection for the persecuted Mormons. It also required that pioneers were reliant on and bound to their community, with little support or trade with the outside world. When the earliest pioneers and their leader Brigham Young arrived at the edge of the Salt Lake Valley in July 1847, they lost no time in establishing a settlement. Within days they had scouted the land for miles around and identified a place for their new city, laying out first Temple Square and then another 134 blocks in a 9 by 15 grid, oriented along the cardinal directions (Fig. 1a). The primary influence of the grid design was the “Plat of Zion” (Fig. 1b), an ideal plan for a mile-square city of 20,000 residents, drawn 14 years earlier under the supervision of Joseph Smith and intended for Missouri.4 Brenda Scheer wrote a comprehensive article on the Mormon pioneers’ planning of Salt Lake City for Utah Historic Quarterly. Because of the length of the original, the following is excerpted from the original with her permission. You can read this article by subscribing to history.utah.gov/utah-historical-quarterly. 16 REFLEXION
both sides, are 132 feet wide (eight rods). (The street widths were designed to follow the Plat of Zion and not for turning oxen, though the latter was perhaps a practical consequence of the design.) Each block was initially subdivided into eight equally sized lots of 1.25 acres, which is unusually large for a western settlement.6 In Salt Lake City, city founders prized self-sufficiency, permitting the planting of vegetable gardens and fruit trees in the early years and erecting barns and animal holding areas, which was a departure from the Plat of Zion directives. As planned, the lots were to contain a single house centered on the lot and set back a uniform distance of 20 feet from the street. Very early regulations also called for shade trees to be planted along the frontage of all lots.7 Plat of Salt Lake vs Plat of Zion The plan set the dimensions and orientation of blocks, streets and lots, and a central location for temples and other public buildings, but no commercial streets. Smith’s “Plat of Zion” was designed to be compact and dense, with small town lots, closely surrounded by agricultural fields that were meant for a daily commute. Smith had designed the City of Zion to hold up to 20,000 people on just one square mile, a density that would require 10 to 12 residents for every half-acre house lot. At the time Salt Lake City was founded, there were about 17,000 Mormons waiting beyond the Rocky Mountains to follow Young into the Great Basin. Had Young followed the compact Plat of Zion plan, most of them would have been accommodated in the city proper. Instead, the first plat (Plat A) of Salt Lake City was 2.5 square miles, instead of one, but was planned with only 1,080 lots. Plats B and C were laid out the following year. Young greatly altered the dimensions of the lots in the Plat of Zion to reduce the density of the settlement, which would allow more agricultural uses in town. He kept the large dimensions of the blocks and streets but divided the 10-acre blocks into much larger lots (eight instead of 20) so that each lot was 1.25 acres. This turned out to be a crucial decision. Figure 2 compares the size of blocks and lots in the initial plat of Salt Lake City to the Plat of Zion. In the Plat of Zion, Temple Square was to be located in the center of town. Due to the topography of Salt Lake City, however, Temple Square was not geographically at the center but on the far north where the valley floor meets the foothills to the north and where City Creek divided into two streams. This is apparent on what is believed to be the initial surveyors’ working sheepskin document, recently acquired by the Library of Congress after years of languishing in the attic of a pioneer’s descendant.7 Initially, 40 acres (four blocks) were reserved for the temple, storehouses and other public use. This was quickly scaled back to one city block.5 Plat A is a uniform grid of 660 ft by 660 ft blocks (40 rods). Streets, including 20 feet set out for sidewalks on Figure 2. The subdivision pattern of Salt Lake’s initial blocks (a) compared to the Plat of Zion (b) blocks. Same scale. Figure 1. Plat A of Salt Lake City (a) compared at the same scale to the Plat of Zion (b). Note the variance in lot sizes and the smaller size of the area reserved for the Temple (dark squares). The grey blocks were initially public space. Each block is 660 x 660 ft. Figures courtesy of the author. 17
Plat A allocated three blocks as open spaces, subsequently developed as West High School, Pioneer Park and Washington Square, the location of the city and county building. These may have been inspired by the squares in William Penn’s plan of Philadelphia, which was an important influence on town planning in the United States. In addition to the unusually large dimensions of the blocks and the lots, another remarkable characteristic of the plan is the orientation of the lots. Similar to the original Plat of Zion, the lots were oriented in different directions on every block, creating a basket weave pattern. The intention was privacy for the inhabitants, so that instead of houses facing each other across the street they would face their side yards, presumably planted in garden, providing a green aspect.8 After the initial 135 blocks were laid off and distributed, rapid immigration caused two more large plats — Plat B (1848, 64 blocks) and Plat C (1849, 85 blocks) — to be developed in the same pattern.9 In addition to town lots, large agricultural lots (the “Big Field”) were laid out to the south and west, fulfilling the notion of the agricultural village. Salt Lake City’s big fields consisted of five-acre allotments within a large 40-acre block. To the south, it was located between 900 South and 2100 South in present-day Salt Lake City. Figure 3 is a map showing the first three plats and the Big Field to the south, as they existed in about 1855. The initial street plan of the Big Field is reflected in the present-day location of through streets in the Sugar House and Liberty Wells neighborhoods. The Salt Lake City plat lost cohesion from the very beginning. Instead of small houses on large lots surrounded by orchards and barns, the center of the city became urban within a few years, with small lots and multi-story buildings. Certain other plan adaptations began to Figure 3. Plat A, B, and C and the “Big Field” of Salt Lake City, ca. 1850. Meridian and Base Line of the Public Land Survey are highlighted (South Temple and Main Streets). In the evolution of the Big Field (now Sugarhouse and Liberty Wells), the through streets still respond to the pattern of the initial plat, with odd number streets as the only north–south streets, and streets every four blocks (Ninth, Thirteenth, etc.) as the only east– west through streets take shape here that would be constant in all the Mormon blocks, although the areas outside downtown were not as dense. It was necessary from the very beginning to adapt the eight-lot block configuration, because the rapid growth of the city required far more house lots than originally planned. In the 1870s the church’s grip on the city’s development was weakened with the influx of new arrivals brought by the transcontinental railroad and mining and commercial opportunities.10 At the same time, the emigration of religious settlers began to wane as church leaders downplayed the “gathering.” Consequently, the city began to accommodate its layout to new peoples and urban uses. By 1889, there was adaptation in all but a few of the Plat B blocks — the subdivision of the outside four lots into many smaller lots, defeating the intended opposite orientation in the original design. These new smaller lots were far closer to standard city lots of the era, although still developed as single-family homes, not the urban rowhouses common for U.S. cities. The lots subdivided in this manner had greatly varying widths and sizes with new houses built in different styles after the lot was divided off by its owner. Despite regulation, uniform setbacks were not observed. This left much unusable land for urban development in the inside of a block. In subsequent decades, beginning no later than 1911, this problem was handily solved by creating what could be termed “mews” — short dead-end streets with small houses on either side, all within a single original lot. There are many examples of these alleys or mews in the historic plats of Salt Lake City, almost all of them surviving into the late 20th century and many still extant. In the 20th century, the automobile began to dominate urban form everywhere. In the Mormon blocks, surface parking areas were often created in the center of the blocks. About the same time, some older houses were destroyed to make way for larger, non‑residential uses and apartment blocks, also using the vast interior of the block as parking. Scattered retail strip centers also replaced houses. Many of the smaller, less well-built houses on mews 18 REFLEXION
were also destroyed, consolidating lots for larger 20th century uses. Even in 1847, it should have been clear to Brigham Young and the early pioneers that the large size of the blocks was unworkable for a city destined to be more than an agricultural village of several hundred. Making do with the size of the lots as given, further subdivisions were common even in the first allotments, despite Young’s directive to keep the lots whole. Although the agricultural village concept was successful in much smaller towns across Utah, at least in the 19th century, Salt Lake City quickly developed into a dense urban area.11 Furthermore, the pioneers had prior experience of town planning in Nauvoo, where the initial platted lots were smaller, as were the blocks and streets. Even these smaller lots were frequently subdivided in the few years that Nauvoo grew into a thriving city. Young himself had visited England and New York City and understood the nature of towns and cities. Joseph Smith greatly admired New York, passed through Cincinnati in the 1830s, and apparently was acutely interested in the creation of a great city.12 The Salt Lake City founders’ persistence in the overly generous and unworkable street, block and lot dimensions is puzzling under these circumstances. The Plat of Zion remains an ideal vision, a compact city surrounded by green fields, all in service to a notion of a close community based on a religiously inspired work ethic, moral code and communal economy. One might also add that, by modern standards, it would also be a sustainable community: walkable, green, self-sufficient and dense. But creating the ideal central place of Zion clashed with the immediate and pressing need to accommodate thousands of new residents. The large lots of an agricultural village were never suitable for either purpose, being perhaps a remnant of Young’s own discomfort with urbanity. Had Brigham Young actually used the Plat of Zion lot dimensions, there would probably have been more orderly development, since those lots were more in keeping with the cottages of the mid‑19th century. We cannot know. Instead, in the Salt Lake City plats, the initial lots were much too large, initiating a frenzy of irregular subdivision that created the internal small streets and irregular buildings of multiple sizes, land uses and orientation. And because the initial development was not very dense, the extent of the new city had to be expanded dramatically in response to immigration. But it has come to pass that what may have been an ill adaptation in the city’s first century and a half may now be called advantageous in certain respects. The unique plan of Salt Lake City offers both flexibility and possibility within its rigid and enormous extent. The blocks and small alleys easily accommodate the tremendous growth in the 21st century. The wide streets have proven adaptable to a range of multiple public uses, and more may evolve to make the place a walkable, attractive environment. Salt Lake City is a very young city in the scheme of things and its evolution is only beginning. On the whole, the plan has offered what all good plans do: a sound framework to guide the evolution of an interesting and varied place. 1. The idea that the city’s street width was related to turning either oxen teams or horse teams is not substantiated in the historical record but likely persists because residents (then and now) need an answer to inquiries about the wide streets. 2. Steve Olsen, The Mormon Ideology of Place: Cosmic Symbolism of the City of Zion, 1830–1846 (Provo, UT: BYU Press and the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter Day Saint History, 2002). 3. Martha Bradley Evans, “Constructing Zion: Faith, Grit and the Realm of Possibilities,” Utah Historical Quarterly 89 (Winter 2021): 63–78; C. Mark Hamilton, Nineteenth-Century Mormon Architecture and City Planning (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 13–14. 4. “Plat of the City of Zion, circa Early June–25 June 1833,” p. [1], The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed January 25, 2022, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/ plat-of-the-city-of-zion-circa-early-june-25-june -1833/1. 5. Richard H. Jackson, “The Mormon Village: Genesis and Antecedents of the City of Zion Plan,” BYU Studies Quarterly 17, no. 2 (1977): 6. 6. Jackson, 10. 7. Stephen William Schuster, “The Evolution of Mormon City Planning and Salt Lake City, Utah, 1833–1877” (PhD diss., University of Utah, 1967), 89. 8. Marilyn Reed Travis, “Social Stratification and the Dissolution of the City of Zion in Salt Lake City, 1847–1880” (PhD diss., University of Utah, 1995). 9. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom. 10. Marilyn Reed Travis, “Social Stratification and the Dissolution of the City of Zion in Salt Lake City, 1847– 1880” (PhD diss., University of Utah, 1995). 11. Lowry Nelson, The Mormon Village (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1952). 12. Richard L. Bushman, Making Space for the Mormons: Ideas of Sacred Geography in Joseph Smith’s America, vol. 2 in the Leonard J. Arrington Mormon History Lecture Series (Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 1997), 9. BUILD YOUR BRAND, CONTACT US TODAY! (855) 747-4003 | sales@thenewslinkgroup.com 19
The Salt Lake City Second Century Plan Like many American cities during the postwar Baby Boom, Salt Lake City experienced serious growing pains in the 1950s and 60s. As families got larger and larger, the American Dream picked up from its urban roots and moved out to the suburbs, aided by the availability of newly constructed tract housing with big green lawns and a car parked in every driveway. As Salt Lakers abandoned downtown apartments and dense bungalows for greener pastures, the shopping, entertainment and eventually offices followed them into the periphery, leaving a central business district that was becoming less and less viable as a commercial center for the Intermountain West. By 1962, the situation was getting dire and — recognizing a drastic change was needed — downtown business leaders formed a group to study the issue of sprawl and come up with actionable solutions to help bring people (and their money) back into the heart of Salt Lake City. They called themselves Downtown Planning Association Inc. and were led by Jim Hogle (real estate developer and zoo benefactor), Wendell B. Mendenhall (head of LDS Church Building Department), John Krier (Intermountain Theaters and Salt Lake Chamber) and Stanford P. Darger (businessman and Salt Lake Chamber). The board of directors included recognizable names like Henry Dinwoody (furniture mogul), George Eccles (First Security Bank and philanthropist), J. Bracken Lee (former governor, then mayor) and David O. McKay (president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). While this illustrious group representing the major downtown interests undoubtedly understood the issues as well as anyone, they needed partners who could get the plan on paper and excite the populace about funding large public works projects to propel Salt Lake City into a new era of prosperity. That is where the Utah Chapter of the American Institute of Architects came in. AIA Utah members ended up donating over $100,000 (over $1 million in 2024 currency) worth of professional time to help brainstorm and envision ideas for a rejuvenated downtown, and they ended up getting twin billing on what became the Second Century Plan when the report was published on Sept. 19, 1962. Dean Gustavson, FAIA, led the design effort as the chairman of the Development Plan Committee (DPC). A native Salt Laker, Gustavson was a World War II pilot before studying architecture at UC-Berkeley and returning to Utah to start Gustavson Associates. Gustavson’s mastery of modernist design is still evident in the Merrill Engineering Building at the University of Utah, among many other masterworks. Donald Panushka, FAIA, served as vice chair for the DPC. Panushka attended MIT after serving in the army during World War II, then ended up in Utah in 1953, starting his own firm. Panushka was one of Roger Bailey’s early faculty members at the College of Architecture and Planning at the University of Utah. Richard Stringham, AIA, who was a member of the first graduating architecture class at the University of Utah in 1952, was the secretary for the DPC. He started Carpenter Stringham Architects in 1956, which went on to design the George S. Eccles Building at Utah State University, the Fletcher Physics Building at the University of Utah and the North Visitor Center on Temple Square. The DPC was rounded out by a who’s who of modernist masters, entering the primes of their careers in the early 1960s, BY JOHN EWANOWSKI, AIA 20 REFLEXION
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