A Correction and an Apology: the Childs Restaurants Article
I made an error in my article about the Childs Restaurants and confused the Coney Island Museum (part of Coney Island USA) and the Coney Island History Project. These are two completely different nonprofit organizations. The "Neptune Revisited" exhibit about the Childs Building was actually at the Coney Island History Project. My apologies to Tricia Vita and Charles Denson, Administrative Assistant and Executive Director of the Coney Island History Project.
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Note: I wrote an earlier article about Rafael Guastavino, Jr., his luster-glaze experiments and his place within the development of luster-glazed ceramics in Great Britain, France and the United States. The article below was originally published in Tile Heritage #2 (2016/17), the journal of the Tile Heritage Foundation, and is based mainly on my research in the archives of the R. Guastavino Company in the Drawings and Archives Division at the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University.
The Commercial and Personal Art Tiles of Rafael Guastavino, Jr.: Part I
The R. Guastavino Company was founded by Rafael Guastavino y Moreno (1842-1908) in 1889 in New York. Guastavino emigrated to the United States in 1881 with his son, Rafael Guastavino y Esposito (1872-1950), after building “...factories, mills, and houses for the leading industrialists of Catalonia, the most industrialized region of Spain, using a modern adaptation of an old Catalan [architectural vault-building system...called] Catalan or timbrel vaulting. [...This] system differs from traditional vault construction in a number of ways. The Catalan vaults are thinner, have a lower rise, and are capable of covering greater spans than stone vault. [...The vault’s layered] tiles are simply ‘stuck’ together by a mortar so tenacious that the tiles will break ... before the mortar parts.” (1)
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| Fig.1. A dome and vault “Detail Sheet”, April 1921. (Pencil Points, Vol. 3, No. 2, February 1922; Public Domain) |
During its existence, the R. Guastavino Company (1889-1962) (2) had over one thousand commissions to build vaults and domes, and over six hundred are known to still exist. (Figure 1) Guastavino vault and dome tiles--and later, their art tiles--were manufactured in the Guastavino Company factory in Woburn, Massachusetts.(3)
The Guastavinos--father and son--were always interested in the importance of color and the motifs that used color and could be utilized in tile work. In the early 1880s Rafael, Sr. prepared a series of color plates of antique and non-Western motifs as applied for modern use. These were published in The Decorator and Furnisher. (Figure 2; Endnote 4)
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| Fig. 2. Egyptian and Assyrian coloring and styles of decoration which illustrates Guastavino’s article that discusses the motifs of these peoples. (Endnote 4) |
Over the years, the R. Guastavino Company developed a varied color palette in matte glazes for their vault tiles, and these were used in many commissions for decorative effects. Many would call Guastavino vault tiles “art” tiles, but father, and especially son, went much further than vault tiles. (Figure 3; Endnote 5)
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| Fig. 3. Salesman sample showing the range of colors developed by the Guastavino Company for their vault and dome tiles.(Avery_4423_005; Endnote 5) |
In 1904 the New York City subway began operating from its City Hall Station, which was considered the “Jewel” of the new system. The 1979 New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission Report states that “[...the City Hall Station’s Guastavino] vaults are constructed of white mat-finished tiles with contrasting green and brown glazed tiles at the edges of the vaults. The younger Rafael Guastavino was especially interested in the development of ornamental and colored ceramic tile for Guastavino vaults.”(6)
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Fig. 4. ”Located on a loop of single track, the station presented...unique design possibilities: the platform and track could be bridged by a single snug arch; the...[R. Guastavino Company's] special system of setting tiles in a criss-cross pattern with fast-setting mortar created lightweight, centerless vaults... . ...the arches and vault ribs are edged with colored tile...” (Endnote 7; Photo courtesy of Dave Pirmann and www.nycsubway.org)
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This station (Figure 4; Endnote 7) and the vaulted and domed Elephant House (1904) at the Bronx Zoo (Figure 5; Endnote 8) were two early indicators of the interest of Rafael, Jr. in “ornamental and colored ceramic tile.”
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| Fig. 5. Two views of the Elephant House at the Bronx Zoo depicting the colored dome tiling and the interior Guastavino vaulting (1909).(Endnote 8) The dome has since been re-clad in copper, and the polychrome-tiled exterior no longer exists. |
The geometric and modernistic-tiled dome on the Elephant House presages Rafael Guastavino Jr.’s polychrome art tile dome on the State Capitol building in Lincoln, Nebraska. (Figure 6; Endnote 9)
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| Fig. 6. The tiled dome of the Nebraska State Capitol Building (built 1922-32) with its Thunderbird motifs. “Blue, red and yellow mosaic tiles, along with the dominating gold, form a colorful final element to the otherwise light sandstone exterior. At the extreme top of the dome rests the bronze image ‘The Sower,’ representative not only of the foundation of the life of man in agriculture, but also of man's chief purpose in forming society, to sow nobler ideas of living.” (Endnote 9; Photo credit: Michael Padwee) |
The tile murals in the Nebraska State House in Lincoln, Nebraska was one of at least six commissions that used ornamental tiles made by the Guastavino Company according to Professor George Collins of Columbia University, who saved and then cataloged the R. Guastavino Company Papers. Collins lists the Vanderbilt Hotel (the Grill Room and Della Robbia Bar), New York City (1911); the Dater Residence, Montecito, California (1915-1917); the Post Office and Railroad Station in Tyrone, New Mexico (1915-1917); an unnamed hotel in Santa Barbara, California; the Naval Training Station, San Diego, California (1921-1923); UCLA, Los Angeles, California; and the Nebraska State Capitol (1922-1932) as using art tiles. I believe there are at least two others: Rafael, Jr.’s home in Bay Shore, Long Island, the “Tile House”, built in 1911, and the door to Rafael, Sr.’s crypt in St. Lawrence Basilica, Asheville, North Carolina. In addition, Rafael, Jr. experimented with luster glazes in the late nineteen-teens and nineteen-twenties and used these glazes to create “antique” Persian-style, and other tiles and pottery for his personal use. I propose to first discuss Guastavino’s use of art tiles on commercial projects in chronological order, then his personal use of art tiles and his experimental luster tiles in Part II.
The Grill Room and Della Robbia Bar in the Vanderbilt Hotel (1910-1912)
An earlier and different use of decorated tiles by Guastavino, other than his later collaborations with the architect Bertram Goodhue, was in the Grill Room and Della Robbia Bar of the Vanderbilt Hotel at 4 Park Avenue in Manhattan. Here, Guastavino used vault tiles decorated with a Greek Key pattern mixed with Rookwood faience.
The Vanderbilt Hotel was designed by the architectural firm of Warren & Wetmore and opened in January 1912. The Grill Room and Della Robbia Bar were an outstanding decorative example of the artistic combination of colored Guastavino vault tiles with Rookwood faience and tiles. (Figures 8, 9, 10) “The most striking features of the design of the Della Robbia Restaurant were its ceramic-tile finish and its thin-shell Guastavino vaults.. . On December 28 1910, the R. Guastavino Company received sketches and photographs of the ceramic designs meant for the Guastavino vaults of the restaurant from Rookwood Pottery. (Figure 7)
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| Fig. 7. Photos of the Rookwood floral panels which were sent to the R. Guastavino Company in December 1910. (Avery_4423_001; Guastavino/Collins archive, Drawings and Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, Series III, Project Files, Box 12, Folder 71; http://findingaids.cul.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-a/ldpd_3463538/summary). |
“On that same day drawings were made to illustrate how the elements would be assembled into bands. The final design for the restaurant was composed of a variety of shapes and colors. Arches were faced in a blue background, against which ivory-colored bands of foliated patterns framed flowers of two types, one of which featured grotesque heads; borders of rectangular blue tiles were edged in spindle moldings. Vaults were edged with a field of blue and aqua tiles superimposed with an outer border of ivory rope molding and an inner band of yellow, green, and red panels alternating with ivory rosettes.”(10)
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| Fig. 9. Detail of the ceiling in 2016. The ornamentation in the ceiling arches is either terra cotta or faience ornamentation manufactured by the Rookwood Company. |
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| Fig. 10. The ceiling of the bar and restaurant areas of Wolfgang’s Steakhouse in the Vanderbilt Hotel building at the corner of Park Avenue and East 33rd Street (4 Park Avenue). The Guastavino vault tiles have a glazed, Greek Key decorative pattern. |
The building has gone through many changes over the past century, and according to the Oxford University Press blog, “[the] original...Grill Room and adjacent bar, occupying the lower floors of the hotel [...were] separate from the formal dining room. This iconic space was...an outstanding example of Guastavino tile vaulting.
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| Fig. 8. The original Della Robbia Room in the Vanderbilt Hotel. (Photo above: Architecture, February 1912, Plate XVI; Public Domain) |
"This method of construction uses thin-shell terracotta tiles in an interlocking pattern to form load-bearing arches and vaults; the elegant technique uses its decorative form to accomplish its engineering function. ...The Della Robbia Bar and two adjacent bays of the upper part of the Grill Room have been preserved and remain today as Wolfgang’s Steakhouse (now the restaurant’s front and rear dining room, respectively)...., and it was designated an interior landmark in 1994”(11)
Guastavino and Goodhue: The Dater Residence, Montecito, California (1915-1917)
The collaboration between Rafael Guastavino, Jr. and the architect, Bertram Goodhue, began in the period around the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Diego (1915) where Goodhue designed many of the Exposition buildings in a Spanish or Mexican Colonial style. Goodhue obtained commissions in the West as a result of the Exposition, and these included the Henry Dater residence, a Phelps-Dodge company town in Tyrone, New Mexico and a Marine base and Naval Air Station in San Diego.
Thus, besides the use of artistic motifs with tiles in public buildings and spaces, Rafael, Jr. also used art tiles in residential and personal commissions. One of the most notable was their use in the Dater residence in Montecito, California, which was designed by Bertram Goodhue in 1915. (12)
“...Henry Dater (b. 05/06/1867 in Fordham, NY), purchased property adjoining El Fureides, [James Waldron] Gillespie's estate in Montecito, CA. Dater, a New York coffee broker and real estate speculator, commissioned the renowned New York architect, Bertram Grosvernor Goodhue (1869-1924), to design this house in 1915; [Dater] never occupied it, and, in 1924, it was sold to the Yale-trained Philadelphia lawyer, Charles Henry Ludington, Jr., (1866-1927)... . The estate, in turn, was willed in 1927 to Charles's aesthetically-acute son, Wright S. Ludington (1901-1992), who supervised much of the planting in the gardens.”(13) The estate was renamed “Val Verde,” and more recently was expanded in acreage and new buildings were added; it is now a resort, “Pariso Verde,” or Green Paradise.(14)
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| Fig. 11. A colored, half-panel drawing of a tile panel for the Dater Residence that has been flipped horizontally and combined in order to illustrate the full panel (Avery_4423_015). This was the tile panel in the arcade behind the woman in the Figure 13 photo, possibly a backsplash for a fountain. |
Bertram Goodhue designed art tiles for use in the Dater residence which were made by the R. Guastavino Company. Drawings in Columbia University’s Avery Drawings and Archives illustrate two interior tile panels and two decorative tiles used in the house. (Figures. 11, 12) These tiles, and the tiles used in other Goodhue collaborations, were inspired by Spanish, Tunisian and Mexican ceramic and tile motifs.
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| Fig. 12. Two 5+ inch square tiles made for the Dater Residence that were also used in Tyrone, New Mexico and the U.S. Naval Station in San Diego. The luster glaze on one tile may have resulted from Rafael, Jr.’s experiments at the time. (Avery 4423_004 and _003; From the Guastavino/Collins archive, Drawings and Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University; http://findingaids.cul.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-a/ldpd_3463538/summary). |
We also have archival photos taken by Peter Cooper Bryce, a photographer who rented the Dater residence in the early 1920s. The photo In Figure 13a shows a woman sitting at a tiled pool. The tiles that make up the tiled planter to the woman’s left, as well as the tiles around the pool are similar to tiles used in the Naval Training Station in San Diego, while the tile pattern to the woman's right was used in Tyrone, New Mexico. The tile at the left was also used in the private bathroom of Bertram Goodhue’s office in New York City.(15) (According to Peter Salter of the Lincoln Star Journal, the building at 2 West 47th Street in Manhattan with Goodhue’s office and bathroom tiling is about to be demolished.)(16) Thus, there was some amount of duplication of designs in the making of tiles for these Goodhue/ Guastavino projects.
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| Fig. 13a. The tiled planters to the rear of the woman were designed by Bertram Goodhue and executed by the Guastavino Company when the house was built. (Photo courtesy of Marc Appleton, taken by his grandfather, P.C. Bryce, ca. 1921; the view of the tile plaque in the arcade was edited by the author so the design could be seen.) |
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| Fig. 13b. The tiled arcade and tiled planters behind the woman in Fig. 13a. from a contemporary periodical. The arcade contains a number of tiled panels plus a tiled fountain. (Photo from: Dwight James Baum, "An Eastern Architect's Impressions of Recent Work in Southern California", Architecture, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 1, July 1918, p. 180; public domain) |
According to an itemized bill from the Guastavino Company dated June 1, 1917, ornamental glazed tiles for the patio pool and Persian fountain, five tree wells, a terrace fountain and pool, and the arcade (consisting of three wall surfaces; two borders around openings; two inner borders around openings; one 2’8” x 3’4” panel on a center bay; a wall fountain; a small pool for the wall fountain; and window grilles were executed by Guastavino and probably all designed by Goodhue.(17; Figure 14) There is a later bill from December 6, 1917 that includes a tile mantel.
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| Fig. 14. An itemized bill for ornamental tiles dated June 17, 1917. (Guastavino Company Project Records, Box 1, “Santa Barbara [Montecito?] Calif. USA--Residence--Dater Residence 1917 1.112” folder, “Dater House. Ornamental Tile.”, June 1, 1917, in the Guastavino/Collins archive, Drawings and Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University; http://findingaids.cul.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-a/ldpd_3463538/summary; Avery_4423_002) |
“Val Verde”, the name given to the Dater Estate after it was sold in 1925, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. At that time, the extensive description on the Registration Form did not mention any decorative tile installations. This probably means that the tile installations were not considered important enough to be mentioned by the architectural researchers, or they no longer existed. In fact, according to Romy Wyllie, the author of Bertram Goodhue: His Life and Residential Architecture, the original tile work had been destroyed.(18)
The Tyrone, New Mexico Company Town (1914-1917)
In 1914 construction was begun by the Phelps-Dodge copper corporation on a model, planned-community, company town in Tyrone, New Mexico, and was completed in 1917. This was not to be the typical, poorly-constructed and poorly-run company town, but a “dream city” as envisioned by Mrs. Dodge. Mrs. Dodge made the initial drawings for “her” community and insisted that Bertram Goodhue be hired to produce the final architectural plans. The town included a fully-stocked hospital, administration buildings, a mercantile store, a school, free-standing houses for both Mexican workers and “American” workers in different town sections, a post office and a railroad station. Many of the important buildings were grouped around a plaza. “Although Goodhue’s specialty was pseudo-Gothic and Romanesque [architecture, ...during] a vacation in Mexico...he became enamored with the Spanish Mission or Mexican Colonial type of architecture.”(19) Tyrone was built in this style. (Figure 15)
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| Fig. 15. A picture post card of the Tyrone, New Mexico business district, c. 1950s, before the advent of the open-pit mine. The Railroad Station is on the left, the Post Office and Mercantile Building are in the center. |
Goodhue commissioned Rafael Guastavino to execute interior tiling in the Post Office and Railroad Station, which flanked the plaza, but there do not seem to be any surviving views of those tile installations. We do, however, have Guastavino’s drawings of tile designs he proposed for these buildings. (Figures 16, 17, 18, 19)
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| Fig. 16. Two tile designs used in the Tyrone project. The design on the left was used for the wainscoat in the railroad station and the sides of two flower boxes; the design on the right was used for the border of the wainscoat in the post office and the tops of two flower boxes. (Guastavino/Collins archive, Drawings and Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, NYDA.1963.002: 0054-00066; http://findingaids.cul.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-a/ldpd_3463538/summary; Avery_4423_008) |
Guastavino, probably working with ideas suggested by Bertram Goodhue, proposed no less than seven, and possibly more, tile “schemes” for the interior Post Office and Railway station borders and walls and for the exterior flower boxes. (And now we know from a tile photo sent by Lee Gruber at Syzygy Tile in Silver City, New Mexico, that the Mercantile Building in Tyrone was also tiled with Guastavino’s ornamental art tiles.)
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| Fig. 17. Details of proposed drawings for border tiles in the Post Office, Schemes A and B (4” x 6” tiles) and C (3” x 6”); Schemes D, E, F (2” x 6”); G (3” x 6”); and H (2” x 6”). Each of these would go with their respective “Schemes” for the four-tile, Field Tile designs, some of which are below. (Guastavino/Collins archive, Drawings and Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, NYDA.1963.002: 0054-00066; http://findingaids.cul.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-a/ldpd_3463538/summary; Avery_4423_014) |
The fact that there are numerous tile design schemes and drawings in different stages for the Tyrone project, and no such tile design drawings in the Dater residence files in the R. Guastavino Company Papers, could mean that the tiles were first designed for Tyrone, and then some were duplicated for the Dater residence project.
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| Fig. 18. Details of three, four-tile repeating designs, Schemes A, D and E. (Guastavino/Collins archive, Drawings and Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, NYDA.1963.002: 0054-00066; http://findingaids.cul.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-a/ldpd_3463538/summary; Avery_4423_009, _010, _011) |
After World War I, the price of copper fell drastically, and the town was all but abandoned by 1921. In 1966 an open-pit copper mine was opened on the site of this planned community, and at the present time, most of the buildings, including the Railway Station, the Post Office and the Mercantile building, have been demolished.
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| Fig. 19. Detail of Flower Boxes showing decorative tiles and their placement. (Guastavino/Collins archive, Drawings and Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, NYDA.1963.002: 0054-00066; http://findingaids.cul.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-a/ldpd_3463538/summary; Avery_4423_006) |
The Nebraska State Capitol Building (1922-1932)
The Guastavino dome on the Nebraska State Capitol Building (Figure 6) introduced a new architectural form for state capitols--a tower with usable space. The architect, Bertram Goodhue, submitted a winning design for the architectural competition to build the Nebraska State Capitol that ”...was remarkably unlike those by the other nine competitors. We miss at once such classical elements as pediments, columns, pilasters, cornices and porticoes. Indeed, by turning away from the traditional concept of a capitol, Goodhue was able to point his winning design in a direction his contemporaries found strikingly modern, thereby influencing the designs for several state capitols built after 1920.”(20) The geometrical, polychrome-tiled mosaic Thunderbirds--a Native American motif--continues the upward flow of the Modernistic, Art Deco elements of the tower.
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| Fig. 20. Some of the Guastavino-tiled wall murals and window arches in the Capitol building’s foyer hallway. (Photo: Michael Padwee) |
The ornamental tile decoration of the interior of this building--the glazed ceramic tile designs for the vestibule dome, rotunda dome, foyer ceiling, and senate chamber (now Warner chamber) ceiling--was a collaboration between the architect, Bertram Goodhue, until his death in 1924, and Goodhue’s choice of the mosaicist, Hildreth Meière, and Rafael Guastavino, Jr. (Figures 20, 21, 22)
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| Fig. 21. A drawing of a section of the tiled rotunda dome designed by Hildreth Meière. (From the Guastavino/Collins archive, Drawings and Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University; http://findingaids.cul.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-a/ldpd_3463538/summary; Avery_3341_02) |
John Ochsendorf gives us an insight into the working relationship between Meière and the Guastavino Company. "Surviving documents illustrate the[ir] working relationship during the Nebraska project. Meière sent images of her mural designs to the Guastavino Company, which then fired the correct size and color of the various tiles. The elaborate tile...work required much more extensive scaffolding than usual for the vault builders. ...Befitting Goodhue's scrupulous vision of craftsmanship, the custom tile pieces were cut by hand to size, taking account of the shrinkage which occurred during firing. Due to the meticulous attention to color, many tiles 'required two and three glaze firings at different temperatures.' Despite this great care, 'Hildreth Meière was a perfectionist and rejected many tiles so the manufacture of many extra batches of tiles became a necessity."(21)
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| Fig. 22. The completed tiled Rotunda Dome designed by Hildreth Meière. (Photo: Michael Padwee) |
There were two other commercial uses of art tiles by Guastavino--a hotel in Santa Barbara, California and somewhere within UCLA, the University of California in Los Angeles, but I could not locate information about either in the R. Guastavino Company Papers.
In the next section (Part II*) I will discuss the tiles used in the Naval Training Station in San Diego, along with a discussion about the antecedents of Guastavino's art tiles; as well as discuss Rafael Guastavino’s personal use of art and luster tiles, and his luster glaze experiments. (*To be published here after Part II is published in Tile Heritage later this year.)
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Janet Parks, Curator of Drawings and Archives at the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University (now retired) and Drawings and Archives Assistant, Nicole Richard for their patience and help with the research for this article. Much of the material about Rafael Guastavino's art tiles and experimental luster tiles came from the Guastavino Fireproof Construction Company/George Collins architectural records and drawings collection in the Avery Archives. I would also like to thank Marc Appleton and his grandfather, photographer P.C. Bryce, for the period color photos of the Dater residence; author and architectural historian, Romy Wyllie; Dave Pirmann, who has an incredible website about the NYC subway system (http://www.nycsubway.org); ceramic arts and architectural historian Richard Mohr; photographer Eric Striffler (www.striffler.com) for the use of his “Tile House” photos (in Part II); Bud Hansbury, Curator and Property Manager, Basilica of St Lawrence, Asheville, North Carolina (http://saintlawrencebasilica.org) for the use of the Guastavino vault photos (also in Part II); Wolfgang’s Steakhouse for allowing me to take photos during their lunch hour; and, as always, thanks to the Tile Heritage Foundation for their support and help.
PART I ENDNOTES:
1 Peter Austin, “Rafael Guastavino's Construction Business in the United States: Beginnings and Development”, APT Bulletin, Vol. 30, No. 4, Preserving Historic Guastavino Tile Ceilings, Domes, and Vaults, 1999, p. 15.
2 The company was known as the Guastavino Fireproof Construction Company until 1897 when the name was changed to the R. Guastavino Company.
3 According to John Ochsendorf, Rafael Guastavino, Sr. began looking for a location to manufacture his tiles in the 1890s. William Blodgett, the Financial Manager of the company, suggested his hometown, Woburn, Massachusetts, a few miles North of Boston, and the company began producing tiles there in 1900. Prior to this, tiles were produced by outsourcing. (John Ochsendorf, Guastavino Vaulting: The Art of Structural Tile, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2010, pp. 76, 79)
4 Rafael Guastavino, “Our Colored Plate: Study in Egyptian and Assyrian Styles and Color”, The Decorator and Furnisher, Volume 2, No. 1, April, 1883, pp. 16-17.
5 From: "Palaces for the People: Guastavino and the Art of Structural Tile", an exhibit at The Museum of the City of New York, March 26- September 7, 2014; borrowed from the Guastavino/Collins archive, Drawings and Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University; http://findingaids.cul.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-a/ldpd_3463538/summary.
6 Marjorie Pearson with David Framberger, Landmarks Preservation Commission Report, Designation List 129 LP-1096, October 23, 1979.
7 Lee Stookey, Subway Ceramics: A History and Iconography, published by Lee Stookey, Brooklyn, NY, 1992, p. 20; Photo courtesy of Dave Piermann.
8 Charles H. Hughes, “Interesting Examples of the Use of Burnt Clay in Architecture”, The Brickbuilder, Volume 18, Number 8, August 1909, pp. 158-159.
9 Eric Scott McCready, “The Nebraska State Capitol: Its Design, Background and Influence,” Nebraska History, Volume 55, 1974, p. 454.
10 Landmarks Preservation Commission, April 5, 1994; Designation List 258, LP-1904, p. 4.
11 Alodie Larson, “Pragmatic preservation and the Vanderbilt Hotel”, OUPblog, October 8, 2013; http://blog.oup.com/2013/10/preservation-vanderbilt-hotel/.
12 “Goodhue began designing custom decorative tiles in collaboration with Rafael Guastavino, Jr. beginning with the Dater Residence...[which was completed] in 1917.” (John Ochsendorf, Guastavino Vaulting: The Art of Structural Tile, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2010, p. 170)
13 The Pacific Coast Architecture Database; http://pcad.lib.washington.edu/building/3586/.
14 Ruth Ryon, “Green Acres to Spare”, Los Angeles Times, December 10, 2006; http://articles.latimes.com/2006/dec/10/realestate/re-home10.
15 Emails from Romy Wyllie, Director, Caltech Architectural Tour Service to Michael Padwee dated February 28 and March 1, 2015.
16 Peter Salter, “Clock ticking on birthplace of Nebraska's Capitol”, Lincoln Star Journal, September 20, 2014; http://journalstar.com/news/local/clock-ticking-on-birthplace-of-nebraska-s-capitol/article_8f399962-49c1-5395-87f8-a3d5e8966e66.html.
17 Guastavino Company Project Records, Box 1, “Santa Barbara [Montecito?] Calif. USA--Residence--Dater Residence 1917 1.112” folder, “Dater House. Ornamental Tile.”, June 1, 1917, in the Guastavino/Collins archive, Drawings and Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University; http://findingaids.cul.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-a/ldpd_3463538/summary.
18 Email from Romy Wyllie to Michael Padwee dated June 9, 2016.
19 Larry Spain, “The Enchanted Ghost”, Desert Magazine, Palm Desert, California, Volume 29, Number 2, February 1966, pp. 18-19. Also see “Building a Modern Copper-Mining Town at Tyrone, New Mexico”, National Builder, Volume 62, Number 2, February 1919, pp. 35-42; and Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, “The New Mining Community of Tyrone, N.M.”, The Architectural Review, Volume 6, Number 4, April 1918, pp. 59-62 and Plates LII, LIII, LIV, LV, LVI; and http://prepperbroadcasting.com/preppers/tyrone-utopia-deserted/.
20 Eric Scott McCready, “The Nebraska State Capitol: Its Design, Background and Influence,” Nebraska History, Volume 55, 1974, p. 347.
21 John Ochsendorf, Guastavino Vaulting: The Art of Structural Tile, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2010, pp. 173-174. [A further discussion of the making of extra tiles for an art tile installation can be found in Richard D. Mohr's article, "Art Tiles in the Prairie School: Part II--Griffin + Mahoney + Teco" in the Journal of the American Art Pottery Association, Winter 2012, Vol. 28, No. 1].
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TWO OF MY PHOTOS
TWO OF MY PHOTOS
and one of my sister's photos were chosen for a national, juried photography exhibition, Transformations, which will run from October 27th to November 12th at the galleries of the Pennsylvania Center for Photography, 181 E. Court Street, Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
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| The Rookery (Chicago, 2000/2017) |
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| Moondog (aka Louis Thomas Hardin; 1972) |
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| The Blue Hour (2017, Lynn Padwee) |
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LINKS TO MY PAST BLOG ARTICLES
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The Atlantic Terra Cotta Company and the Beginnings of Polychrome Terra Cotta Use
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Bits and Pieces: The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and following up on the James N. Gamble House and the Charles Volkmar Overmantle Mural
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The Heart of the Park: Bethesda Terrace and its suspended Minton Tile ceiling
A Landmarks hearing was held on July 19, 2016...
Two Restorations: The City Hall Subway Station and the Tweed Courthouse
Egyptian, Moorish and Middle Eastern Ornamentation Used In Art Deco Terra Cotta in New York City, and Empire State Dairy Update
Wall Murals in Brooklyn: A Mini Survey
Inside Prospect Park: The park's Rustic, Classical and other Internal Architecture
Herman Carl Mueller in Titusville and Trenton, New Jersey; A Charles Volkmar Discovery in Clifton, New Jersey
A Book Review and New Discoveries and Updates-II: Jean Nisan, Ceramic Tile Artist
Polychrome Terra Cotta Buildings in Newark, New Jersey
New Discoveries-I: The Tiled House of Jere T. Smith
Introducing the Stained and Dalle de Verre Glass Art of Robert Pinart
Bits and Pieces: Polychrome Terra Cotta- and Tile-Clad Buildings
Socialist and Labor Architecture and Iconography in New York City
Bits and Pieces: Two Mosaics--Hamden, CT and Manchester, NH
The Renaissance Casino and Ballroom Complex in Harlem: Another Tunisian Tile Installation Headed for Demolition
Clement J. Barnhorn and the Rookwood Pottery
The Woolworth Building
The Mosaic Art of Hildreth Meière
Lost Tile Installations: The Tunisian Tiles of the Chemla Family
The Grueby Children's Murals on East 104th Street
The Experimental Lustre Tiles of Rafael Guastavino, Jr.
Bits and Pieces: Two "E"s--Eltinge and Elks; and more about Jean Nison
The Ceramic Tiles and Murals of Jean Nison
Pleasant Days in Short Hills: A Rookwood Wonderland
Architectural Ceramics in the Queen City
Isaac Broome: Innovation and Design in the Tile Industry after the Centennial Exhibition
"Immigration on the Lower East Side": A Public Arts Mural Created by Richard Haas
Movie Palaces-Part 2: The Loews 175th Street Theatre
Béton-Coignet in New York: The New York and Long Island Coignet Stone Company
Michelin House, London
Movie Palaces, Part 1: Loew's Valencia Theatre
An Architectural and Ceramic Tour of Istanbul - Part II
The Tiles of Fonthill Castle
An Architectural and Ceramic Tour of Istanbul - Part I
Tiled Facades in Madrid
Nineteenth Century Brooklyn Potteries
Ernest Batchelder in Manhattan
Leon Victor Solon: Color, Ceramics and Architecture
Architectural Art Tiles in Reading, Pennsylvania
Charles Lamb and Charles Volkmar
Kansas City Architecture - II
Kansas City Architecture - I
Westchester County--Atwood and Grueby
Modern Houses in New Caanan, Connecticut
PPG Place, Pittsburgh
Aluminum City Terrace, New Kensington, Pennsylvania
Newark's WPA Tile Murals: “Fine Art is an Important Part of Everyday Life”
Public Art Programs in New York City: The CETA Tile Murals at Clark Street
Concrete and Tiles-I: Moyer, Mercer, Murosa
The Café Savarin and the Rookwood Pottery; Chocolate Shoppe Rebounds
Architectural Ceramics of Henry Varnum Poor
Herman Carl Mueller and the Church of St. Thomas the Apostle
Meet Me at the Astor
The Mikvah Under 5 Allen Street; "Historic Hall" Apartments Revisited
London Post-3
Some Moravian Tile Sites in New York
London Post-2
London Post-1
Brooklyn's International Tile Company
Subway Tiles-Part III, the Squire Vickers Era
Subway Tiles-Part II, Heins and LaFarge
Subway Tiles--Part I, Guastavino tiles
Trent in New York-Part III, Historic Hall Apartment House
American Encaustic Tiling Company-Part II, Artists' Tiles
Trent in New York-Part II, a Dey Street Restaurant
American Encaustic Tiling Company-Part I, Tile Showrooms
Trent in New York-Part I, The Bronx Theatre
Fred Dana Marsh's Tiles
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