The Mark of the Builder: Rafael Guastavino’s Masonry in Asheville, North Carolina

FIGURE 1 A Guastavino timbrel vault. FIGURE 2 Porte cochere, Biltmore House, Asheville, North Carolina, 1895. The Mark of the Builder Rafael Guastavino's Masonry in Asheville, North Carolina ANN S. FOWLER [Emory University] The Spanish architect and builder, Rafael Guastavino (1842-1908), constructed fireproof factories and residences in Catalonia for fifteen years before emigrating to the United States in 1881.1 He came to America because he felt that the building materials sold in this country, particularly Portland cements, were superior to those that were available in Europe at the time. Guastavino settled in New York City with his youngest son, Rafael Jr. (1872-1950), with whom he established the Guastavino Fireproof Construction Company in 1889 and the R. Guastavino Company eight years later. Their success in the United States was due in part to a continuing concern in the nineteenth century with fireproof construction. From the late 1880s to the 1960s the Guastavino firm installed fireproof tile vaulting in more than one thousand buildings in America and in ten other countries. A magnificent series of Guastavino vaults can be found in the recently restored Main Building on Ellis Island. According to Paul Goldberger, architectural critic for the New York Times, these vaults are the "single most important architectural feature" of the historic landmark.2 The uniqueness of the company's work lay in the timbrel vaulting system patented by Rafael Guastavino, Sr.3 Unlike the traditional voussoir "gravity" vault, the timbrel vault relied on the cohesion of its tiles and mortar for its stability. This method of cohesive construction was indigenous to Mediterranean countries but was undeveloped in nineteenth-century America. Guastavino's cohesive structures consisted of several courses of thin frreproof terra-cotta tiles placed with their flat surfaces tangent to the vault (Figure 1). Masons set the soffit course in quick-setting plaster, often on top of a rounded template used to keep the curvature of the vault consistent. Then workers embedded the second and third courses in thick layers ofPortland cement which comprised almost 50% of the vault's composition. The strength, beauty, frre-resistance, and thin-shell quality of 1 The author would like to express her appreciation to Dr. Judith C. Rohrer of the Art History Department, Emory University, for sharing her knowledge of Catalan architecture and for offering advice during several stages of this project. 2 Paul Goldberger, "At Ellis Island, Embracing America's Past and Future," New York Times September 7, 1990, Section B, Page 1. 3 See George R. Collins, "The Transfer of Thin Masonry Vaulting from Spain to America," Journal ofthe Society ofArchitectural Historians 27 (October 1968), 176-201. Collins's article remains the most extensive treatment of the Guastavinos and the timbrel vaulting technique. ARRIS 2: 43-58. 1991 44 ARRIS 2. 1991 Guastavino vaults made them popular with leading architects of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Architects such as McKim, Mead and White, Bertram Goodhue, Ralph Adams Cram, Richard Morris Hunt, and Cass Gilbert employed the Guastavinos as contractors for many of their most prestigious commissions. Considered in this paper are three sites in the Asheville, North Carolina, area that are useful in understanding Guastavino's construction methods and the development of his company. These are the Biltmore House (1888-95), the St. Lawrence Church (1905-09), and the Guastavino Estate (ca. 1895) in nearby Black Mountain. The Biltmore House is significant as one of Guastavino's early commissions from a prominent architect, Richard Morris Hunt. The St. Lawrence Church is unique in its extensive array of Guastavino structures which form ceilings, stairwells, walls, and floors. During this time, the company also began manufacturing its own tiles, and the Black Mountain estate was used by Guastavino for research on tile glazes, sizes, densities, and clay types. Similarities between tile fragments found at Black Mountain and tiles used in later company projects indicate that the North Carolina operation was instrumental in the creation of Guastavino's finished masonry. The Biltmore House, a 255-room French Renaissance chateau for George Washington Vanderbilt, contains early examples ofGuastavino tile vaulting. Hunt may have decided to use timbrel vaulting as a result of Guastavino's participation in the 1893 World...