The pan roast is back. The herring is coming. The famous Oyster Bar restaurant in New York’s Grand Central Terminal reopened last Thursday after a four-month renovation of its 101-year-old interior, particularly a thorough cleaning of its ceiling of interlocking vaults covered with terracotta tiles by the Guastavino firm. Seeing the tiles fully cleaned and all the edging light bulbs aglow hints at the wonders in store for visitors to the exhibition Palaces for the People: Guastavino and the Art of Structural Tile, opening at the Museum of the City of New York on March 26.
The Oyster Bar is one of more than two hundred surviving examples of the marvels of engineering and architectural beauty created throughout the five boroughs by Spanish immigrants Rafael Guastavino Sr. and Jr. in the early twentieth century . Their system of structural tile vaults-lightweight, fireproof, low-maintenance, and capable of supporting significant loads-was used by leading architects of the day, including McKim, Mead and White, Warren and Wetmore (at the Oyster Bar), and Carrère and Hastings. Ellis Island’s Registry Room, Carnegie Hall, the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, the Boathouse and Tennis Shelter in Prospect Park, and the Bronx Zoo’s Elephant House all contain Guastavino vaults. The exhibition (on view until September 7) not only includes never-before-seen drawings, large-scale photographs, videos, and a variety of objects but also a large-scale replica of a Guastavino vault built by local masons that will go far in explicating the secrets of the construction of these engineering tours de force.
Entrance Vaults at the Riverside Church, 1930. Entrance vaults at the Riverside Church in Manhattan by the Guastavino Company. The Guastavino Company was able to integrate its vaulting into the steel framing, so that the loads were shared between the two systems. Though this made the vaulting seem decorative rather than essential, the vaulting was in fact load bearing and part of the building’s structural system. Photograph by Michael Freeman. © Michael Freeman Courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York.
Ceiling of the Elephant House, 1908. Guastavino’s arrival in the U.S. coincided with the dawn of a fertile period in American architecture and a huge construction boom in New York. As a result, cultural organizations were comissioning leading architects to design iconic structures that would become symbols of their institutions. One such example is the Elephant House at the Bronx Zoo, designed by architectural firm Heins and LaFarge, with a Guastavino Company vaulted interior finish of herringbone tile seperated by horizontal bands. Photograph by Michael Freeman. © Michael Freeman Courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York.- Oyster Bar, 1912. The Oyster Bar in Grand Central Terminal is a mature work of the Guastavino Company. Through a series of adjacent vaults, Guastavino Jr. created a space that is once intimate and expansive. The use of only one type of tile provides a uniform finish across a dozen soaring vaults.The legendary durability of Guastavino vaults is also evident here. Photograph by Michael Freeman. © Michael Freeman Courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York.
When a fire struck the Oyster Bar in 1997, thousands of tiles were delaminated, however, the structural integrity of the vaults was not comprised. Photograph by Michael Freeman. © Michael Freeman Courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York.
Boathouse interior, Prospect Park, 1905. The Boathouse in Prospect Park in Brooklyn is an example of how the Gustavino Company offered their design “suggestions” to the arthitectural firms, who in turn adopted Guastavino designs with few changes. The Boathouse was designed by the arhitectural firm Helmle and Huberty. This photograph of the interior depicts an example of a “flat vault” with an opening for a staircase. Photograph by Michael Freeman. © Michael Freeman Courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York.
Saint John the Divine Ceiling, 1909. Avery Library.
Pennsylvania Station, 1910. Avery Library.
Load test on Guastavino heliocoidal tile stair, First Church of Christ Scientist, 1900. Avery Library.
Rafael Guastavino Sr., 1880. Avery Library.
If you go to the Oyster Bar, try the oyster pan roast and, in June, when the new catch is in, the herring from Holland. Also check out the adjoining Guastavino-vaulted space, where, in addition to admiring the architecture you can- due to a peculiarity in the structure- eavesdrop on a conversation on the other side of the room. It’s a little eerie but a lot of fun.
