 Guastavino tile work in NYC City Hall subway station Guastavino tile refers to the "Tile Arch System" patented in the US in 1885 by Catalan 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. His work is found in New York’s most beloved landmarks and in major buildings across the country. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1024x814, 93 KB)New York City City Hall subway station This image is from HABS/HAER, the Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record collection at the Library of Congress. ...
Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1024x814, 93 KB)New York City City Hall subway station This image is from HABS/HAER, the Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record collection at the Library of Congress. ...
Guastavino Fireproof Construction Company Guastavino is perhaps the most important American architect that no one has heard of. His work appears in a huge number of architecturally important and famous buildings, and much of the beauty of these buildings derives from his unique work. 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 precursor 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. Barcelona is the capital city of Catalonia (Spain). ...
Antoni Gaud i Cornet (more widely known in the English speaking world under the Spanish version of his first name, as Antonio Gaud , or, just simply, Gaudi), (25 June 1852–10 June 1926) was a Catalan architect famous for his unique designs expressing sculptural and individualistic qualities. ...
From left to right: Will Mead, Charles McKim and Stan White McKim, Mead, and White was the premier architectural firm in the eastern United States at the turn of the twentieth century. ...
The Boston Public Librarys McKim building The Boston Public Library was established in 1848. ...
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 cantlevered out over the open space, relying only on the quick drying cements developed by the company.
In 1900, New York architects Heins and Lafarge hired Guastavino to help create the underground showpiece station for the first NYC subway. The station, although elegant, was never convenient or popular, and after it closed in 1945 the City Hall (IRT Lexington Avenue Line station) became the legendary abandoned Manhattan underground relic, a secret of subway buffs and urban spelunkers. City Hall is the original southern terminal of the first underground line of the New York City Subway, built for Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT), and now part of the Lexington Avenue Line. ...
Major projects incorporating the distinctive Tile Arch System include the Boston Public Library, Grand Central Terminal, Grant's Tomb, Carnegie Hall, the U.S. Supreme Court building, the National Museum of Natural History, the American Museum of Natural History on Central Park West, Temple Emanu-El, St. Bartolomew's on Fifth Avenue, the Nebraska State Capitol, and literally hundreds of other major buildings, largely in New York and Boston, but also in Philadelphia and in other cities. Grand Central Terminal, along 42nd Street, next to the Grand Hyatt New York and the Chrysler Building Grand Central Terminal (often still called Grand Central Station, although technically that is the name of the nearby post office and New York City Subway station on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line) is...
Grants Tomb, circa 1909 Grants tomb 2004 Grants Tomb is a mausoleum containing the bodies of Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885), an American Civil War General and the 18th President of the United States, and his wife, Julia Dent Grant (1826-1902). ...
Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in New York City located at 57th Street and 7th Avenue. ...
The American Museum of Natural History is a landmark of Manhattans Upper West Side in New York, USA, at 79th Street and Central Park West. ...
This article needs cleanup. ...
The Nebraska State Capitol The Nebraska State Capitol (aka The Tower on the Plain), located in Lincoln, Nebraska, is the capitol and seat of government of the U.S. state of Nebraska. ...
After experiencing Ellis Island as incoming immigrants, in 1917 Guastavino Junior 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. Immigration Museum on Ellis Island Ellis Island, located in New York Harbor at the mouth of the Hudson River, was at one time the main immigration port for immigrants entering the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. ...
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. The Cathedral of St. ...
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 80th Street, in Manhattan's Upper West Side, which survive. His son Rafael's Mediterranean villa (1912) built entirely of Guastavino tiles, still stands in Awixa Point,Bayshore, Long Island [1]. The Upper West Side is a neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan in New York City that lies between Central Park and the Hudson River. ...
After working on a commission at the Biltmore Estate, Guastavino retired to Asheville, 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. The Biltmore House awes tourists who see its indoor pool and bowling alley in addition to some 250 other rooms, much unchanged since this 1902 photo. ...
Asheville City Hall. ...
Nickname: City of Medicine Motto: Official website: http://www. ...
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 8488258658). Taipei 101, the worlds tallest building as of 2004. ...
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.
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