Guastavino tile is the "Tile Arch System" patented in the US in 1885 by
ValencianValencian is the historical, traditional, and official name used in the Valencian Community of Spain to refer to the region's native language....
(Spanish) architect and builder
Rafael Guastavino (1842–1908). It is a technique for constructing robust, self-supporting
archAn arch is a structure that spans a space while supporting weight . Arches appeared as early as the 2nd millennium BC in Mesopotamian brick architecture and their systematic use started with the Ancient Romans who were the first to apply the technique to a wide range of structures.-History:Arches...
es and
architectural vaultsA Vault is an architectural term for an arched form used to provide a space with a ceiling or roof. The parts of a vault exert a thrust that require a counter resistance. When vaults are built underground, the ground gives all the resistance required...
using interlocking terracotta
tileA tile is a manufactured piece of hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, or even glass. Tiles are generally used for covering roofs, floors, and walls, showers, or other objects such as tabletops...
s and layers of
mortarMortar is a workable paste used to bind construction blocks together and fill the gaps between them. The blocks may be stone, brick, cinder blocks, etc. Mortar becomes hard when it sets, resulting in a rigid aggregate structure. Modern mortars are typically made from a mixture of sand, a binder...
to form a thin skin, with the tiles following the curve of the roof as opposed to horizontally (
corbelIn architecture a corbel is a piece of stone jutting out of a wall to carry any superincumbent weight. A piece of timber projecting in the same way was called a "tassel" or a "bragger". The technique of corbelling, where rows of corbels deeply keyed inside a wall support a projecting wall or...
ling), or perpendicular to the curve (as in Roman vaulting). This is known as timbrel vaulting, because of supposed likeness to the skin of a
timbrelTimbrel or tabret , the principal musical instrument of percussion of the Israelites, similar to the modern tambourine...
or
tambourineThe tambourine or Marine is a musical instrument of the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils"...
, or "
Catalan vaultThe Catalan vault, also called the Catalan turn or Catalan arch or a timbrel vault, is a type of low arch made of plain bricks often used to make a structural floor surface...
ing". Guastavino tile is found in some of New York’s most prominent Beaux-Arts landmarks and in major buildings across the United States.
Guastavino Fireproof Construction Company
Guastavino was also an architect in his own right, but he is more important for his patented tiling system which appears in a huge number of architecturally important and famous buildings, which derive their flexibly vaulted spaces from his unique vaulting. But fame did not come to him, because he served as a contractor, not the principal architect, of these projects.
He came to New York City from
BarcelonaBarcelona is the capital, most populous city of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia and the second largest city in Spain, with a population of 1,615,908 in 2008. It is the 11th-most populous municipality in the European Union and sixth-most populous urban area in the European Union after Paris,...
in 1881 at the age of 40 with his nine year old son. In Spain he'd been an accomplished architect trained in Barcelona and a contemporary of
Antoni GaudiAntoni Plàcid Guillem Gaudí i Cornet – in English sometimes referred to by the Spanish translation of his name, Antonio Gaudí...
. In the US his first major commission, in
McKim, Mead, and WhiteMcKim, Mead, and White was a prominent architectural firm in the eastern United States at the turn of the twentieth century. The firm's partners were Charles Follen McKim , William Rutherford Mead , and Stanford White , along with many other associates and designers.McKim and White had both worked...
's
Boston Public LibraryThe Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was the first publicly supported municipal library in the United States, the first large library open to the public in the United States, and the first public library to allow people to borrow...
(1889), made him known to every major architect on the East Coast.
He and his son (who shares his name) would eventually hold 24 patents. Their company, Guastavino Fireproof Construction Company, run by father then son, was incorporated in 1889 and executed its final contract in 1962.
The Guastavino terra cotta tiles are standardized, less than an inch thick, and approximately by across. They are usually set in three herringbone-pattern courses with a sandwich of thin layers of
Portland cementPortland cement is the most common type of cement in general use around the world, because it is a basic ingredient of concrete, mortar, stucco and most non-specialty grout...
. Unlike heavier stone construction, these tile domes could be built without centering. Each tile was cantilevered out over the open space, relying only on the quick drying cements developed by the company.
AkoustolithAkoustolith is a porous ceramic material resembling stone. It was used to limit acoustic reflection and noise in large vaulted ceilings. The most prevalent use was to aid speech intelligibility in cathedrals and churches prior to the widespread use of public address systems...
was one of several trade names used by Guastavino.
In 1900, New York architects
Heins & LaFargeThe New York-based architectural firm of Heins & LaFarge, composed of Philadelphia-born architect George Lewis Heins and Christopher Grant LaFarge - the eldest son of the artist John LaFarge, famous especially for his stained glass panels - were responsible most notably for the original...
hired Guastavino to help construct
City Hall stationCity Hall, also known as City Hall Loop, was the original southern terminal of the first line of the New York City Subway, built by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company , named the "Manhattan Main Line", and now part of the IRT Lexington Avenue Line...
, the underground showpiece for the
IRTThe Interborough Rapid Transit Company was the private operator of the original underground New York City Subway line that opened in 1904, as well as earlier elevated railways and additional rapid transit lines in New York City. The IRT was purchased by the City in June 1940...
, the first part of the then-new
New York City subwayThe New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the City of New York and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, a subsidiary agency of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and also known as MTA New York City Transit...
. The station, although elegant, was never convenient or popular, and after it closed in 1945 it became a legendary abandoned Manhattan underground relic, the secret of subway buffs and urban spelunkers.
Literally hundreds of other major building projects incorporate the distinctive Tile Arch System. In
ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois, and with more than 2.8 million people, the 3rd largest city in the United States...
, the central nave vaulting of
Rockefeller ChapelRockefeller Chapel is, by order, the tallest building on the campus of the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. It was meant by patron John D...
at the
University of ChicagoThe University of Chicago is a private, coeducational research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by oil magnate and benefactor John D...
uses 100,000 Guastavino tiles. In Boston Guastavino tiles are to be found in the Boston Public Library; in New York, in
Grand Central TerminalGrand Central Terminal — often popularly called Grand Central Station or simply Grand Central — is a terminal station at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City...
,
Grant's TombGeneral Grant National Memorial , better known as Grant's Tomb, is a mausoleum containing the bodies of Ulysses S. Grant , American Civil War General and 18th President of the United States, and his wife, Julia Dent Grant...
,
Carnegie HallCarnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
, the
American Museum of Natural HistoryThe American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side, Manhattan, New York, USA, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world...
, Congregation Emanu-El of New York, and
St. Bartolomew's Episcopal ChurchSt. Bartholomew's Church, commonly called St. Bart’s, is a historic Episcopal parish founded in January 1835, and located on the east side of Park Avenue between 50th and 51st Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.-Architecture:...
on Park Avenue; and in Washington, DC in the U.S. Supreme Court building and the National Museum of Natural History on the National Mall. Guastavino tiles form the domes of
St. Francis de Sales Roman Catholic Church (Philadelphia)thumb|300px|St. Francis de Sales ChurchSt. Francis de Sales Roman Catholic Church, founded in 1890, is a Catholic church in University City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Its cornerstone laid in 1907, the Guastavino tiled dome of the de Sales...
, and in
Union Station (Pittsburgh)Union Station or Pennsylvania Station is a historic train station at Grant Street and Liberty Avenue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.-History:...
, the vaulting of the carriage turnaround is a Guastavino tile system. In Nebraska they are to be seen in the
Nebraska State CapitolThe Nebraska State Capitol, located in Lincoln, Nebraska, is the capitol and seat of the Nebraska Legislature and houses other offices of the government of the U.S. state of Nebraska. One of the most distinctive statehouses in the United States, its height is surpassed only by the Louisiana State...
.
Having experienced
Ellis IslandEllis Island, at the mouth of the Hudson River in New York Harbor, is the location of what was from January 1, 1892, until November 12, 1954 the main entry facility for immigrants entering the United States; the facility replaced the state-run Castle Garden Immigration Depot in Manhattan...
as an incoming immigrant, in 1917 the younger Guastavino was commissioned to rebuild the ceiling of the Ellis Island Great Hall. The Guastavinos set 28,832 tiles into a self-supporting interlocking -high ceiling grid so durable and strong that during the restoration project of the 1980s, as many sources repeat the story, only 17 of those tiles needed replacing.
The largest dome created by the Guastavino Company was over the central
crossingA crossing, in ecclesiastical architecture, is the junction of the four arms of a cruciform church.In a typically oriented church , the crossing gives access to the nave on the west, the transept arms on the north and south, and the choir on the east.The crossing is sometimes surmounted by a tower...
for the
Cathedral of Saint John the DivineThe Cathedral of St. John the Divine, officially the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine in the City and Diocese of New York, is the Cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of New York...
in New York: it is in diameter and high. This dome was intended to be a temporary structure, to be replaced by a high central tower. In 2009 this "temporary" fix had its 100th birthday. Guastavino received this contract in large part because of the much lower price he could quote due to the fact that his system served as its own scaffolding. However, this was an extreme test of his system. The masons had to work from above, each day adding a few rows of tiles, and standing on the previous day's work to progress. At the edges, many layers of tile were laid, and the dome thins as it rises towards the center.
Guastavino as architect
Few structures designed and built by Guastavino alone have been identified. He was responsible for a series of rowhouses with unusual Moresque features on West 78th Street (121-131 known as the "red and whites"), in Manhattan's
Upper West SideThe Upper West Side is a neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan in New York City that lies between Central Park and the Hudson River above West 59th Street....
, which survive. His son Rafael's Mediterranean villa (1912) built entirely of Guastavino tiles, still stands on Awixa Avenue, Bay Shore,
Long IslandLong Island is an island located in southeastern New York, United States, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City, and two of which are mainly suburban...
.
Retirement in North Carolina
After working on a commission at the
Biltmore EstateBiltmore House is a French Renaissance-style mansion near Asheville, North Carolina, built by George Washington Vanderbilt II between 1888 and 1895. It is the largest privately-owned home in the United States, at and featuring 250 rooms. Still owned by one of Vanderbilt's descendants, it stands...
, Guastavino retired to
Black MountainBlack Mountain is a town in Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 7,511 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Asheville Metropolitan Statistical Area...
. In North Carolina his work is found in Duke Chapel in
DurhamNot to be confused with the U.K. city Durham.Durham is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the county seat of Durham County and also extends into Wake county. It is the fifth largest city in the state by population, with 223,284 residents as of July 1, 2008. Durham County as of July...
, the Jefferson Standard Building in Greensboro, the Motley Memorial in Chapel Hill and St. Mary's Catholic Church in Wilmington. He is buried in the crypt of the Basilica of St. Lawrence, Asheville, which he designed in 1905.
Archival sources
The records and drawings of the Guastavino Fireproof Construction Company are held by the Department of Drawings & Archives in the
Avery Architectural and Fine Arts LibraryThe Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library is one of twenty-five libraries in the Columbia University Library System and is located in Avery Hall on the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University in the City of New York. It is the largest architecture library in the United States...
at
Columbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City...
in New York City.
Significance
Guastavino tile has both structural and aesthetic significance.
Structurally, the timbrel vault was based on traditional vernacular vaulting techniques already very familiar to Mediterranean architects, but not well known in America. Terracotta free-span timbrel vaults were far more economical and structurally resilient than the ancient Roman vaulting alternatives.
Guastavino wrote extensively about his system of "Cohesive Construction". As the name suggests, he believed that these timbrel vaults represented an innovation in
structural engineeringStructural engineering is a field of engineering dealing with the analysis and design of structures that support or resist loads. Structural engineering is usually considered a specialty within civil engineering, but it can also be studied in its own right....
. The tile system provided solutions that were impossible with traditional masonry arches and vaults. Subsequent research has shown the timbrel vault is simply a thinner masonry vault that produces horizontal thrust also, simply to a lesser degree due to its lighter weight.
External links