Structure and History of Guastavino Vaulting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Jonathan Calman Ellowitz Bachelor of Arts in English, Skidmore College, 2007 Post-baccalaureate certificate in Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tufts University, 2013 Submitted to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Engineering in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology June 2014 © 2014 Jonathan Calman Ellowitz. All rights reserved. The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part in any medium now known or hereafter created. Signature of Author:_____________________________________________________________ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering May 9, 2014 Certified by:___________________________________________________________________ John A. Ochsendorf Professor of Architecture and Civil and Environmental Engineering Thesis supervisor Accepted by:___________________________________________________________________ Heidi M. Nepf Chair, Departmental Committee for Graduate Students Structure and History of Guastavino Vaulting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Jonathan Calman Ellowitz Submitted to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering on May 9, 2014, in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Engineering in Civil and Environmental Engineering Abstract The R. Guastavino Company constructed structural masonry vaults for wings E and H of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (the Museum) between 1910 and 1912. In the early 1960s the Museum relocated the Egyptian and Near- and Far-Eastern galleries to these wings, which in combination with growing numbers of visitors doubled the design live load for the vaults. To accommodate this change, the Museum demolished the Guastavino vaults and replaced them with steel beams even though consulting engineers had not performed a thorough structural assessment prior to demolition. The vaults were a part of a landmark McKim, Mead and White building and warranted appropriate analysis to determine their capacity under increased loading demand. This thesis investigates both history and structural analysis. Primary sources reveal that the consulting engineers hired by the Museum were unfamiliar with the structural analysis of unreinforced masonry vaults, leading to the decision to demolish them. These historical events contextualize the quantitative focus of the thesis, which is to provide engineers with accessible techniques to structurally assess unreinforced masonry systems. This enables decisions based on evidence rather than a lack of comprehension of structural behavior. Three important assumptions about masonry behavior are adopted: Masonry has no tensile strength, it has unlimited compression capacity, and it will not fail from sliding between blocks or segments. With these assumptions, masonry analysis is primarily a problem of stability rather than elasticity. Analytical equilibrium and graphical techniques are used to determine vault stability under dead and live loading. Two vaults are investigated: A scaled Guastavino vault built for a recent exhibit, and a representative cross-vault from wing H of the Museum. Two methods of modeling structural behavior are used for each analysis technique: The triangle-arch and sliced parallel arches methods. Analysis shows that the Museum vaults had the capacity to resist the increased live load. Thesis Supervisor: John A. Ochsendorf Title: Professor of Architecture and Civil and Environmental Engineering Acknowledgements It is amazing to study a subject for many months, and one day to pause and realize how many people contributed to its development. A number of excellent minds made this thesis possible. First, I owe mighty gratitude to Professor John Ochsendorf, who introduced me to the fabulous achievements of the R. Guastavino Co. and to the particularly intriguing topic of the demolition of the Guastavino vaults at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. John is a true “Guastafarian,” and spreads his gospel well. One only has to see the growing number of engineers, architects, and historians drawn to Guastavino structures to understand John’s ability to communicate his own fascination with the topic. Thank you John for pushing me to really comprehend how these structures work. I will be a better engineer for it. I am equally thankful for the help and camaraderie of two graduate students in MIT’s Building Technology program: William Plunkett and Caitlin Mueller. Despite his busy schedule, William was always available to check my work or to hear out my ideas about the challenging structural analysis of these vaults. He offered expert suggestions that have surely improved the quality of this thesis. Despite her busy schedule finishing both a PhD in structural optimization and a Masters in design computation, Caitlin, a true teacher, took great interest in my study and was always on hand to field ideas and offer suggestions that improved the scope of my inquiry. I extend my thanks also to the entire Structural Design Lab (SDL), a round-table research group at MIT led by John Ochsendorf. Students at the SDL thoughtfully and acutely offered ideas and support throughout the process of my work. I hope my input in their studies was as valuable as their contribution to my progress. I thank Kristian Fennessy, a student of architecture at MIT, who during his senior year explored the issue of the demolition of the Metropolitan Museum vaults in wings E and H for a class paper. Kristian initially exposed the importance of this topic, and I thank him for laying the foundation for future study of it. This thesis would not have been possible without the assistance of two dedicated archivists: Janet Parks of Columbia University’s Avery Drawings and Archives Collection, and James Moske, Managing Archivist of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Janet aided me in my search for relevant drawings and primary sources. The results of our collaboration were instrumental in moving the thesis forward. James patiently facilitated my research at the Museum, helping me sort through hundreds of documents and drawings in search of useful sources. Thank you Janet and thank you James. I am fortunate to have the family support for my structural engineering aspirations. My parents Jeralyn and David, my brothers Jake and Daniel, and my grandparents Lenore and Jack, and Sam and Grace (z”l), have unflinchingly promoted my course of study and have even taken personal interest in the elegant structures designed and built by the Guastavinos. Thanks to this fantastic family for its loyalty. And I offer enormous thanks to my beautiful wife Miriam, to whom this thesis is dedicated with love. Miriam understands why these vault structures have had such intellectual intrigue for me. For her devotion to my passions, I make it my goal to take equal interest in hers forever. Contents 1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 10 1.1 Motivation ................................................................................................................................. 10 1.1.1 Prevalence of Beaux-Arts buildings in New York City ........................................................ 10 1.1.2 Impetus for study: Demolition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art ..................................... 10 1.1.3 The role of the structural engineer ........................................................................................ 10 1.2 History of the Guastavinos ........................................................................................................ 11 1.2.1 Rafael Guastavino Sr. ............................................................................................................ 11 1.2.2 Rafael Guastavino Jr. ............................................................................................................ 12 1.3 Thesis context and mission ........................................................................................................ 12 1.3.1 The future of historic masonry architecture .......................................................................... 12 1.3.2 Strategies for analyzing unreinforced masonry vaults .......................................................... 12 1.4 Problem statement ..................................................................................................................... 12 1.5 General thesis outline going forward ......................................................................................... 13 2 Literature review ................................................................................................................ 15 2.1 Chapter objectives ..................................................................................................................... 15 2.2 Principles of masonry equilibrium ............................................................................................ 15 2.3 Guastavino’s masonry theory .................................................................................................... 18 2.3.1 His Essay at MIT, 1892 ......................................................................................................... 18 2.3.2 Disputing some of Guastavino Sr.’s assertions ....................................................................