Among the several character defining elements of the Cathedral is the “temporary” dome. Now 113 years old, Guastavino vaulting revisited is an opportunity to look at the expertise and work of this company and its impact on the Cathedral. The above drawing, dated January 18, 1909 depicts different views of the dome. All the views are necessary to visualize and design the dome and the interface of the dome with the arches. The drawing is part of the Guastavino/Collins Archive, Drawings and Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University. The drawing is on a large linen sheet 40 inches by 30 inches. The scale is 1/4 inch = 1 foot.
In 1909, a year after the death of his father, Rafael Guastavino Jr. designed the 93 feet diameter dome of the Cathedral. The dome is the company’s largest as well as being the thinnest brick shell in the world. The thickness at the top is just under 4 inches. The great spire and lantern that Heins and Lafarge envisioned over the crossing was set aside in order to enclose the crossing and allow services to move out of the crypt. The massive perimeter arches were already in place when Guastavino Jr. designed and constructed the dome. A challenging part of the project was to frame the spherical dome into the existent square layout. The capacity of the arches played a critical role in the design process. Guastavino Jr. graphically calculated the thrust generated by the dome once he determined the weight of the arches.
Graphic Statics
The main working drawing presents five different projected views of the dome and arches to calculate the three-dimensional dome using graphic statics. The idea of graphic statics is to find the forces in a system based on its geometry. Graphic statics is a powerful method for the design and analysis of structures. Using force polygons and simple geometric construction techniques it provides visual information about form and forces in a structural system.
This one unique drawing, attributed to Rafael Guastavino Jr., contains every calculation required to construct the dome. Guastavino made innovative calculations not previously published.
A Review – A hundred Years Later
Three structural engineers recently deconstructed components of the drawing to see if the calculations indeed were sufficient to construct the dome.
“The working-drawing illustrates how the genius and expertise of a man could synthesize, on a single sheet of paper, the entire design process of one of the most daring structures in the world. This result refutes the belief that other calculations notes for the Cathedral have existed and have been lost. Guastavino Jr. here reminds every contemporary engineer that innovative, efficient design goes along with clear and efficient design methods and tools. He also reminds every preservation officer how much critical information is embedded in original drawings, providing a first-hand view into the original designer’s thought process.”
“This single working drawing includes all the information about the geometry of the structure and the provisions for its construction, but it also describes precisely where the geometric features come from and how all the technical values were graphically computed. It encompasses five different views of the dome, all related by alignments and projections.”
-Zawisny, N., Fivet, C., & Ochsendorf, J. (2017). Guastavino design of the 1909 thin dome of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Construction History, 32(2)
Needless to say, it is also an elegant piece of work.
Guastavino – Father and Son
Rafael Guastavino y Moreno (1842-1908) revived Catalan construction in Spain and introduced it to the United States in the late nineteenth century. Born in Valencia, Spain he studied architecture at the School of Architecture in Barcelona. When he was 26, he won a competition to design a large textile factory. This project, which made his name in Barcelona, allowed him to fully employ his fireproof thin tile construction. These buildings established him as the leading practitioner of Catalan vaulting. The Catalan vaults are thinner, have a lower rise, and are capable of covering greater spans than stone vaults. Guastavino scholar Professor George Collins compares them to a masonry version of plywood.
Guastavino, Sr. came to the United States in 1881 at the age of forty. He was accompanied by his 15 year old youngest son. Guastavino believed that he could find better building materials here, particularly Portland cement. He did not meet with immediate success in the United States. His system of building was unknown and his success in Spain did not carry much weight. In 1886, passed over for another design job, he agreed to erect the vaulting to carry the floors on that job. This proved to be the path Guastavino would take. He would be a builder installing his vaults in buildings designed by other architects. He would no longer function as an architect in the United States.
The Company
As a contractor, for over 70 years, the R. Guastavino Co. would be involved in about 1,000 buildings in 40 states, four Canadian provinces and eleven other foreign countries. They would hold 24 patents. All of their materials were fireproof.
Rafael Guastavino y Esposito (1872-1950)
The younger Guastavino was not an architect or engineer. He probably had the equivalent education working for his father all those years. He was president of the company for more than 30 years. Guastavino, Jr. was instrumental in adding acoustical materials and glazed finish tile to the company’s product line.
Beginning with the Boston Public Library, Guastavino searched for a source of glazed tile to finish the interior of their vaults. Although they found enough tile to complete the library, no dependable source was established. This led the Guastavino’s to set up their own factory in Woburn, Massachusetts.
Finished (glazed) Guastavino work became so attractive that the company’s vaults were installed for purely esthetic reasons, apart from the building’s structure system.
Acoustical Tiles
Before becoming consulting architects for the Cathedral, Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson, whose principal specialty was neo-Gothic ecclesiastical buildings, were wanting to find a stone-like, sound-absorbing material. They arranged for Rafael Guastavino, Jr. and the leading architectural acoustics expert of the time to meet. That man was Wallace Sabine, a Harvard physicist. Rich acoustical reverberations had enhanced medieval masses, but modern services focused on the sermon. The architects required new construction material capable of reducing reverberations and emphasizing good syllable articulation. Sounds in the pitch between middle C and the third octave above middle C are the characteristic sounds which distinguish articulate speech.
Guastavino and Sabine went on to develop and patent two such materials which the R. Guastavino Company manufactured. The first, a fired-clay tile known as Rumford tile, the second, and more effective product, a cast product called Akoustolith patented in 1916. Akoustolith tile covers all the Nave vaults. After the reconfiguring of the Choir by Cram in 1939, the Choir vaults received the same treatment.
The Sermon or the Music
The principal difficulty in church acoustics is that the conflicting requirements of both speech and music have to be met. Akoustolith tiles assist in the articulation of the spoken word for sermons, but its absorptive qualities make it a source of frustration to many church musicians. The musicians prefer greater reverberations for the enrichment of choral harmonies and organ music.
Two events occurred that have affected these conflicting requirements. Modern sound systems that can enhance the spoken word is one of them. The other event that affected the Cathedral was the December, 2001 fire in the North Transept. The cleaning operation that was undertaken by Building Conservation Associates (BCA) after the fire, allowed for a specialized cleaning of the tile in the Choir and Nave Vaults as well as securing them where needed. Many non fire-related masonry repairs became apparent once scaffolding was up. After the cleaning and stabilizing of the tiles, it was decided to apply a coating that would reverse some of the sound absorbing properties of the tiles. This coating would not be reversible due to the nature of the pore structure of the Akoustolith. The Cathedral decided that an improvement in the music quality within the building outweighed this factor.
The contractor applied the coating to the Choir vaults, the first sexpartite Nave vault west of the Crossing and the side-aisle vaults directly adjacent. The organ curator participated in these improvements.
Guastavino/Collins Archives
The Guastavino/Collins archives is part of the Department of Drawings and Archives at the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University. Professor George R. Collins brought the collection to Columbia. He collected the original drawings and files from 1962, the year the company dissolved, through 1988 when he transferred it to the Avery.
According to Janet Parks, Curator, there are 2,652 drawings for 693 projects. The two largest projects–the National Shrine for the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine–have 110 and 115 drawings, respectively. The Cathedral drawing range from the Crypt, Choir ceiling, several Chapels, stairways and Nave in addition to the Crossing dome.
Many types of architectural records are represented in the collection: drawings, correspondence, specifications, contracts, invoices, minutes, financial statements, patents, advertisements, photographs, test results and reports, memoranda, tile samples, and factory order cards. Miscellaneous materials record Professor Collin’s research efforts.
Guastavino Tile in Recent Lecture
For a deeper dive into the work of the R. Guastavino Company and especially the tile work in the Cathedral, below is an AIA Continuing Education lecture. It is presented by The General Society of Mechanics & Tradesmen of the City of New York. The presenters are Raymond Pepi, President of Building Conservation Associates, and Laura Buchner, Project Manager, Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
Link to Video Here
Currently restoration work is being performed on the inside of the dome above the scaffolding depicted in these images from the Crossing by Robert F. Rodriguez.
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- Zawinsky, N., Fivet, C. & Ochsendorf, J. (2017). Guastavino design of the 1909 thin brick dome of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Construction History, 32(2), 39-66.
- BUCKNER, LAURA. “Restoration of Akoustolith Tile at Saint John the Divine, New York City.” The Journal of Preservation Technology, vol.41, no 2/3, 2010, pp 27-34
- Parks, Janet. “Documenting the work of the R. Guastavino Company: Sources and Suggestions.” APT Bulletin: The Journal of Preservation Technology 30, no 4 (1999); 21-25
- Special thanks to Stephanie Azzarone for leading us to the lecture video from The General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of the City of New York.