All assembly halls built, are built with a lot of glory and grandeur. One of the assembly halls I worked on took about 5 years and cost anywhere from $12-14 million dollars in construction cost, but all built by volunteers. This essentually means any money poured into any of the buildings goes directly into the building. Labor is free.
I bring this up because rebuilding the Stanley Theater was a massive feat. And using the free labor of the local brothers they, quite literally, took every square inch of it and rebuilt it back to it's "glory days". The architecture may be different, But the effort put into it is no different than any other assembly hall.
Now, to pull it all in, the organization inflates itself with pride for such work because the work performed is by the hands of the brothers and paid for by the brothers. They condemn catherals and such for being ornate and such with (and let's face it, there is a point here) with stolen gold and money taken from the poor. we will never know how much raped gold from whatever native civilizations sit beneath the Vatican. anyway, the point is in their minds of the JW's there is a drastic difference between the commissioning an artist to sculpt Madonna and Child out of marble and simply polishing a painted door until the copper underneth shines using nothing but elbow grease and the love of god. So that's how they get that separation. and I personally, will give them that.
HOWEVER, when I (used to) walk into any assembly hall, the idea pops in my head "this is not a struggling group of pour humble christians, is it?" and they are not. And I get that feeling when I walk into a cathedral as well. Same feeling... both locations. So yes, there is hypocracy in their presentation. There is also a pompus pride which is... of course a sin... but that's a different thread.
-James