Place-making in SLC: Conference Center fits, library doesn't

OK, I might as well say it: I like the new LDS Church Conference Center (designed by Zimmer, Gunnsel, and Frasca, 1999).

As a gentile and consummate bo-bo ("bourgeois bohemian" - a cross between a hipster and a yuppie), I should hate it, or at least that's what all my aesthetically astute friends and colleagues tell me. The unfavorable response the building gets from the local literati runs from mild scorn to outright hostility, particularly among those who consider it "terribly fascist." By this I'm assuming they mean that the building's imposing size and monumental frankness equate nicely with their vision of the all-encompassing, authoritarian LDS Church. And on cold January days I might agree with them - devoid of summer greenery, the sky-gray Conference Center, fronted by its barren plaza, can be intimidating. Still, for me the building works as a piece of architecture, and it works better than our other new building, the Salt Lake City Main Library (Moshe Safdie, 2003).

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