The Museum of the City of New York announces Palaces for the People: Guastavino and the Art of Structural Tile, a major exhibition examining the engineering and architectural beauty of spaces designed and built by Spanish immigrant Rafael Guastavino and his son, Rafael Jr. Palaces for the People will feature never-before-seen objects, artifacts, photographs, and documents on the Guastavinos' thin-tile structural vaults, which grace more than 250 architectural landmarks in New York City, including Grand Central Terminal, the Ellis Island Registry Room, and the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. Palaces for the People will also launch a crowd sourcing effort that invites the public to help uncover Guastavino vaults, domes, and arches that have yet to be identified throughout New York City. The exhibition will open Wednesday, March 26, 2014 and remain on view until Sunday, September 7, 2014.

The Guastavinos revolutionized the architectural landscape of New York City and the nation. Immigrating to New York in the late 19 century, the Guastavinos brought with them a centuries-old Mediterranean design technique—thin-tile structural vaulting—and perfected it to be lightweight, fireproof, load-bearing, cost-efficient, and beautiful. Integrating engineering strength and architectural beauty, the Guastavinos' structural tile was capable of spanning broad interiors with soaring vaults—a development that literally shaped the course of modern architecture, as well as the architectural identity of New York City. Their innovation garnered the attention of leading architectural firms of the day, including Carrere & Hastings, Ralph Adams Cram, Cass Gilbert, and McKim, Mead & White, who hired the Guastavinos to design and build dozens of projects.

Today, Guastavinos' work remains hidden in plain sight within more than 1,000 significant architectural spaces in the United States, including more than 250 landmarks across New York's five boroughs, such as the former Vanderbilt Hotel in Manhattan (now Wolfgang's Steakhouse), the Elephant House at the Bronx Zoo, the Boathouse and Tennis Shelter in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, the Food Emporium market below the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge, the street-level arcades in the Manhattan Municipal Building, and the old City Hall Subway Station.

"As you walk through New York City, look up. You see the Guastavino Company's treasures hiding in office buildings, parks, and even subway stations," said Susan Henshaw Jones, the Ronay Menschel Director of the City Museum. "Guastavino vaults represent a remarkable marriage of art and engineering—and tell an extraordinary story of an immigrant family that helped create the look of New York. We are thrilled that Palaces for the People will reveal the Guastavinos' profound influence on the architectural character of New York City."

"There are many great Guastavino buildings across the country, yet nowhere is the Guastavinos' work more prominent than New York City. Palaces for the People will not only showcase the Guastavinos' impact on the city's built environment, but invite the public to help identify and uncover hidden Guastavino projects across the five boroughs," said John Ochsendorf, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor, MacArthur Fellow, and Project Director for Palaces for the People.

"Many of the defining landmarks of turn-of-the-century New York feature grand interiors covered with Guastavino vaults and domes," said G. Martin Moeller, Jr., guest curator for the City Museum's presentation of Palaces for the People. "These beautiful structures contributed significantly to New York's architectural landscape in that period, and have since inspired generations of architects, designers, and builders around the world."

The City Museum's presentation of Palaces for the People has been substantially expanded to feature never-before-seen artifacts, historical images, and original architectural drawings of approximately 20 key Guastavino spaces in New York City, including the City Hall Subway Station, Grand Central Terminal's Oyster Bar, Holy Trinity Church, the Manhattan Municipal Building, Pennsylvania Station, St. Paul's Chapel at Columbia University, the U.S. Customs House, and the Western Union Building. Guastavinos' work can be found in buildings and public spaces throughout Manhattan, from the Battery Maritime Terminal to Carnegie Hall, from the St. Regis Hotel to the Ansonia Apartments, and even the Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center next door to the City Museum.

Palaces for the People was developed as part of a major research project by John Ochsendorf. The exhibition was originally presented at the Boston Public Library and resulted in the companion catalogue, Guastavino Vaulting: The Art of Structural Tile published by Princeton Architectural Press.

The City Museum's presentation of Palaces for the People is made possible by a generous grant from the Jerome L. Greene Foundation. Exhibition co-chairs are Paul Katz, FAIA; Jill Lerner, FAIA; Leslie Earl Robertson; and SawTeen See, P.E.

Highlights of the exhibition include:

• Palaces for the People will launch a citywide search for Guastavino vaults using a new online database within the gallery and on the exhibition website. The database will allow museumgoers—or anyone with a SmartPhone—to submit photographs and the location of any Guastavino projects that they discover in New York City.
• A large-scale replica of a Guastavino vault and a special expository diagram that highlights the patented techniques and engineering qualities that enable the vaults to stand and support weight. The model will offer the rare opportunity to closely examine the structural details that would normally be elevated well above one's head. The model was built by skilled New York City craft-workers from the International Union of Bricklayers & Allied Crafrvvorkers, Local Union No. 1 New York in partnership with the International Masonry Institute.
• An interactive video installation created by Studio Indefinit that enables people to "visit" Guastavino spaces without leaving the City Museum. Filmed in high-definition and projected on a 10-foot screen within the gallery, the video captures the grand scale and intricate detail of ten Guastavino spaces in New York, including the Elephant House at the Bronx Zoo, the Harder Mausoleum within Green-Wood Cemetery, the Boathouse at Prospect Park, and the 79th Street Boat Basin Café in Manhattan. Visitors will be able to control the screen's vantage point within these spaces, moving the view to look up toward the magnificent vaulted ceilings or down toward the bustle of city life below.
• Original drawings from the archives of the Guastavino Fireproof Construction Company, which reveal the design and engineering details behind various New York City structures of note, including the U.S. Custom House in Lower Manhattan and the Gould Memorial Library and Hall of Fame at Bronx Community College.
• Historical photographs from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York that show Guastavino's New York projects at various stages of their history.
• Contemporary photographs by Michael Freeman that depict Guastavino's New York projects in their current state, demonstrating how well most have stood the test of time. Also included are images of the City Hall Subway Station, which has long been closed, but remains in excellent condition.

Museum of the City of New York

1220 5th Ave
New York (NY) 10029 United States
Tel. +1 (212) 5341672
info@mcny.org
www.mcny.org

Opening hours

Daily from 10am to 6pm

Related images
  1. In 1881, Guastavino decided to leave Spain and immigrated with his youngest son, Rafael Jr. to New York. Upon his arrival in the United States, Guastavino struggled to adjust to American building practices. His big break came when the New York based firm of McKim, Mead & White, arguably the leading architectural firm of the era, chose to include his vaulting system within the Boston Public Library. In 1889, the Guastavino Company installed nearly 5,000 sq. ft. of tile vaulting in the Boston Public Library. The tile vaulting provided an economical fireproof alternative for floor systems, as well as new visual possibilities. The vaulting produced the type of grand spaces that the library's architect Charles McKim had envisioned, and in a stroke of inspiration, the tiles were used to create interior surface finishes. During the construction, both McKim and Guastavino realized that the tiles could be left exposed rather than plastered over for additional aesthetic effect. Guastavino procured both glazed and unglazed tiles in a higher level of finish than was usual for his vaults until then.
  2. The Della Robbia Room of the Vanderbilt Hotel in New York is considered one of the most outstanding examples of decorative Guastavino vaulting ever built. Working with architects Warren and Wetmore, Guastavino Jr. developed a series of shallow vaults on arches, which were layered with ceramic pieces that created a relief of color.
  3. Throughout their projects, both Guastavino Sr. and Jr. gave valuable insight and advice to architects who were unfamiliar with the technical aspects of construction. Their solutions provided creative and permanent monuments, including for private homes. An example is the early indoor tennis court in Stanford White's Astor Courts in Rhinecliff, New York. The tile vaulting design was done by the Guastavino Company for the architectural firm McKim, Mead and White.
  4. This angle of the spiral stair at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine (begun 1892) in Manhattan demonstrates the spatial and structural complexities of some of the Guastavino tile vaults. The brilliance of the Guastavino system lies in the seamless integration of structure and finished surface. Each layer of tiles was offset from the adjacent layer to create an interlocking pattern, reminiscent of a woven basket. Such patterns help to distribute forces evenly throughout the structure, making it remarkably strong despite the thinness and lightness of the tiles.
  5. With the funding provided by a luxury hotel, the Della Robbia Room in the Vanderbilt Hotel could extend the possibilites in ceramics. Watercolors were used to convey the color scheme to Rookwood Pottery in Cincinnati, whose ceramic pieces created relief on the surface of the Guastavino vaults.
  6. Spiral stair at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine (begun 1892) in Manhattan demonstrates the spatial and structural complexities of some of the Guastavino tile vaults. The brilliance of the Guastavino system lies in the seamless integration of structure and finished surface. Each layer of tiles was offset from the adjacent layer to create an interlocking pattern, reminiscent of a woven basket. Such patterns help to distribute forces evenly throughout the structure, making it remarkably strong despite the thinness and lightness of the tiles.