Guastavino tile

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Guastavino tile work in NYC City Hall subway station

Guastavino tile is the "Tile Arch System" patented in the US in 1885 by Valencian (Spanish) architect and builder Rafael Guastavino (1842–1908). It is a technique for constructing robust, self-supporting arches and architectural vaults using interlocking terracotta tiles and layers of mortar in a thin skin, with the tiles following the curve of the roof as opposed to horizontal (corbelling), or perpendicular to the curve (Roman). This is known as timbrel vaulting because of supposed likeness to the skin of a timbrel or tambourine. His work is found in some of New York’s most beloved landmarks and in major buildings across the country.

1 Guastavino Fireproof Construction Company
2 Significance
3 See also
4 External links
5 Notes

[edit] Guastavino Fireproof Construction Company

Guastavino was an important American architect whose work appears in a huge number of architecturally important and famous buildings, which derive much of their beauty 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 Barcelona 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 Gaudi. In the US his first major commission, in McKim, Mead, and White's Boston Public Library (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 terra cotta tiles are standardized, less than an inch thick, and approximately 6 inches by 12 inches across. They are usually set in three herringbone-pattern courses sandwiched between thin layers of Portland cement. 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. Akoustolith was one of several trade names used by Guastavino.

In 1900, New York architects Heins & LaFarge hired Guastavino to help create City Hall station, the underground showpiece for the IRT, the first part of the then-new New York City subway. The station, although elegant, was never convenient or popular, and after it closed in 1945 it became the legendary abandoned Manhattan underground relic, a secret of subway buffs and urban spelunkers.

St. Francis de Sales church

Literally hundreds of other major building projects incorporate the distinctive Tile Arch System. In Boston Guastavino tiles are to be found in the Boston Public Library; in New York, in Grand Central Terminal, Grant's Tomb, Carnegie Hall, the U.S. Supreme Court building, the American Museum of Natural History on Central Park West, Congregation Emanu-El of the City of New York, and St. Bartolomew's Episcopal Church on Park Avenue. In Philadelphia, Guastavino tiles form the domes of St. Francis de Sales church and in Union Station (Pittsburgh), the vaulting of the carriage turnaround is a Guastavino tile system.. In Nebraska they are to be seen in the Nebraska State Capitol.

Having experienced Ellis Island 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 56-foot-high ceiling grid so durable and strong that during the restoration project of the 1980’s, as many sources repeat the story, only 17 of those tiles needed replacing.

The largest dome created by the Guastavino Company was over the transept for the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York. It is 100 ft in diameter and 160 feet over the central crossing. The intention was that this dome was to be a temporary structure, which was to be replaced by a high central tower. As of 2005 this "temporary" fix is coming up to 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 goes up.

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 Side, which survive. His son Rafael's Mediterranean villa (1912) built entirely of Guastavino tiles, still stands on Awixa Avenue,Bay Shore, Long Island ^[1].

After working on a commission at the Biltmore Estate, Guastavino retired to Black Mountain, North Carolina. In North Carolina his work is found in Duke Chapel in Durham, 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 in Asheville, which he designed in 1905.

[edit] 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 engineering. 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. See "Guastavino Co. (1885-1962)-Catalogue of Works in Catalonia and America" by Salvador Tarrago (ISBN 84-88258-65-8).

The Guastavino Tile Arch Systems are also beautiful, expressing their own internal structural logic, introducing ornamental detail and curved surfaces with a specific relationship to human scale. They have a timeless, taut, sensual quality.