POPE, Hyram Conrad (1880-1939) and Harold W. BURTON (1887-1969) were active in Salt Lake City, Utah and formed a partnership there in 1910. Pope was born in Nuremburg, Germany and came to the United States in 1896. He studied architecture in classes at the Art Institute of Chicago and trained in several offices in that city before moving to Utah. Burton was a native of Salt Lake City, and lived and worked there for his entire career.
Together they won the competition for a monumental Mormon Temple for the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints located at Cardston, Alberta, and built 1914-21. Costing $300,000, it was the largest and most ambitious ecclesiastical building constructed in western Canada up until that time, and bears a distinct similarity to their design for the Salt Lake First Ward Chapel, at Salt Lake City, Utah (1911) which Pope & Burton had completed just two years earlier. Both buildings were strongly influenced by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, of whom Burton was a great admirer, and the Alberta project was said to have drawn inspiration from Unity Temple, Oak Park, Ill. (1906), a masterpiece from Wright's early career. Begun in 1914, the temple in Cardston took nearly ten years to complete, and was finally opened in August 1923. A full account of the design and construction of the Cardston temple, along with a perspective drawing of the winning design signed by Pope & Burton, appears in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought [Salt Lake City], xiv, Spring 1981, 9-19, illus.
In 1926 the firm of Pope & Burton designed the First Ward Meeting House at Provo, Utah, and their design of this church was adapted for a site in the town of Raymond, Alberta to serve as the Second Ward Chapel & Recreation Hall by the local Raymond architect Francis B. Rolfson. This unique ecclesiastical landmark was converted in 1988-96 to become the Raymond Town Hall, Broadway Theatre, & Public Library, and is now a listed National Heritage site, and designated by Parks Canada. Later works by the firm included the Mormon Temple in Hawaii (1915-1919), as well as St. Paul's Episcopal Church and the Davis County Courthouse, both in Salt Lake City. Pope died in in Salt Lake City on 24 August 1939 (obit. Deseret News [Salt Lake City], 25 Aug. 1939, 1; 26 Aug. 1939, 6; biog. R.B. Simmons, Utah's Distinguished Personalities, 1933, 172; H. Withey, Biographical Dictionary of American Architects, 1956, 479-80). Burton continued to practise under his own name until 1965, and died in Los Angeles on 3 October 1969 (obit. Deseret News [Salt Lake City], 4 Oct. 1969, B2).
CARDSTON, ALTA., Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints, a commission won in a competition against 13 other architects in December 1912; built 1914-21 (Saskatoon Phoenix, 9 Jan. 1913, 1; C.R., xxviii, 1 July 1914, 84, illus. & descrip.; and xxxviii, 26 March 1924, 305-08, illus. & descrip.; Macleod Times [Macleod, Alta.], 1 Sept. 1921, 3, illus. & descrip.; Vernon News (Vernon, B.C.), 29 Sept. 1921, 7, detailed architectural descrip.; H. Kalman, History of Canadian Architecture, 1994, 753, illus. & descrip.)
(with Francis B. Rolfson) RAYMOND, ALTA., Second Ward Chapel & Recreation Hall, Broadway South at Park Avenue East, begun 1928 and completed in 1939; converted in 1988-96 to a Town Hall, Theatre and Public Library (inf. Parks Canada, Canada's Historic Sites, designated 27 September 1989)