Building Program

Between 1946 and 2000, the Church embarked on an elaborate and expensive operation to build over ten thousand meetinghouses across the world to accommodate its rapid rise in international membership. Prior to the 1920s, Church membership was mostly concentrated around Utah in the North American West, with less than 10 percent of the total living outside the United States. Major growth spurred by an outmigration of Latter-day Saints from Utah and missionary work throughout the world shifted those proportions significantly, creating a need for local meetinghouses on a far higher scale than previously. To keep pace with such growth, a standardized building program was implemented, with a variety of local members, missionaries, and contractors contributing to constructing meetinghouses.

For the 1920s and into the 1930s, the Church Architectural Bureau provided custom plans for wards and stakes to build their own meetinghouses as occasion required. Joseph D. C. Young designed the first chapel plans in 1925 that the Bureau recommended for new construction projects. Starting in 1933, the Bureau contracted with private architects for all construction projects, which slightly consolidated certain design styles into similar patterns. At the time, the local branch, ward, or stake assumed all the building costs and often enlisted members in donating labor. In 1937, the Church began assuming half of building costs, leaving the other half to the local units to fundraise. Several of the 19th-century settlements in the West had larger structures called “tabernacles” that functioned as gathering places for larger assemblies. After 1946, meetinghouses called “stake centers” started to replace tabernacles as the local higher-capacity building. By then, the Church Building Department absorbed the Church Architectural Bureau and started hiring third-party contractors to construct buildings based on its own architectural plans.

Before World War II, nearly all branches in Europe and the Pacific met in rented facilities or buildings modified for religious uses. Significant growth in these areas in the 1950s and 1960s prompted ambitious construction plans, not only for places of worship but also for schools. The Building Missionary Program was launched in 1953 for Church members with professional experience to supervise and train young missionaries and volunteers at construction sites. Program administrators believed such projects would afford returned missionaries valuable skills for future jobs and careers. As the last projects finished in 1969, more than 2,000 buildings had been constructed.

Starting in 1957, the building program implemented a phased approach to meetinghouse design and construction. The Church Building Department developed standardized plans intended for rapid reproduction across the world that could scale with continued local growth by starting with a smaller base meetinghouse and then adding extensions as needed. The phases accommodated branches and could progressively expand the building to a large meetinghouse capable of supporting multiple wards.

Andrés Martin (far right) and other construction missionaries at the Concordia Entre Ríos meetinghouse in 1976.

In the 1970s, the Department of Physical Facilities oversaw all real estate, building, operation, and maintenance of meetinghouses, which continued into the 2020s as the Church amassed many thousands more local buildings. The First Presidency announced a new financing model for local construction projects in 1982, which ended branch and ward fundraising campaigns by consolidating funds and paying for all operation and maintenance costs from a general Church fund mostly financed by members’ tithes and offerings. Construction projects were soon managed by Church departments.

By the 2010s, construction management was overseen by area offices and Church headquarters, with unified building standards being maintained across the world. Still, some variations in local codes, materials, and construction methods meant meetinghouse designs also varied somewhat by geography. New standards implemented in 2024 more uniformly assigned boundaries to wards and stakes, thus also further streamlining how and where new meetinghouses would be built.

Church Resources

Matthew C. Godfrey and John Heath, “Service Missionaries Building the Church,” Liahona (Digital Only section), Apr. 2023, ChurchofJesusChrist.org.

“Building Chapels and Saints,” Global Histories: Argentina, Stories of Faith, ChurchofJesusChrist.org.

Bibliography

The following publications provide further information about this topic. By referring or linking you to these resources, we do not endorse or guarantee the content or the views of the authors.

Paul L. Anderson, “Building Meetinghouses, 1952–Present,” in Brandon S. Plewe, ed., Mapping Mormonism: An Atlas of Latter-day Saint History, 2nd ed. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2014), 160–63.

Richard W. Jackson, Places of Worship: 150 Years of Latter-day Saint Architecture (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2003).

Martha Sonntag Bradley, “‘The Church and Colonel Saunders’: Mormon Standard Plan Architecture” (Master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1981).

Related Topics: Wards and Stakes, Temple Building, Church Finances

1. Samuel M. Otterstrom, “Membership Distribution, 1850–Present,” in Brandon S. Plewe, ed., Mapping Mormonism: An Atlas of Latter-day Saint History, 2nd ed. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2014), 174–75; Paul L. Anderson, “Building Meetinghouses, 1952–Present,” in Plewe, Mapping Mormonism, 160–63; see also Topic: Outmigration.

2. Anderson, “Building Meetinghouses,” 160–61.

3. This was a costly program that affected the Church’s overall financial wellbeing; see Topic: Church Finances.

4. “New Program Announced for Financing Meetinghouses,” Church News, Apr. 3, 1982, 3, 14; “Policy for Financing Local Units to Change,” Church News, (Nov. 25, 1989), 3; Jeffrey R. Holland, “Like a Watered Garden,” (General Conference, Oct. 2001), ChurchofJesusChrist.org.

5. “First Presidency Announces Uniform, Worldwide Standards for Ward and Stake Boundaries,” Newsroom, Dec. 1, 2023, newsroom.ChurchofJesusChrist.org.