13 Facts About Rafael Guastavino

Rafael Guastavino's work appears in numerous prominent projects designed by major architectural firms in New York and other cities of the Northeast.

Rafael Guastavino tile is found in some of New York's most prominent Beaux-Arts landmarks and in major buildings across the United States.

Rafael Guastavino was commissioned by the firm of McKim, Mead, and White for their Boston Public Library, which increased his reputation with every major architect on the East Coast.

Rafael Guastavino's published drawings of interior decoration of the Spanish Renaissance style caught the eye of an architect, who asked him to submit a design for the planned New York Progress Club building.

Rafael Guastavino's wife Francesca remained in the house until she died in 1946, and all that remains is a brick foundation and a wine cellar.

In Boston, Rafael Guastavino tiles are found in the Boston Public Library; in New York City, in the Grand Central Terminal, Grant's Tomb, Carnegie Hall, the American Museum of Natural History, Congregation Emanu-El of New York, and St Bartolomew's Episcopal Church; and in Washington, DC in the US Supreme Court building and the National Museum of Natural History on the National Mall.

In 1917 the younger Rafael Guastavino III was commissioned to rebuild the ceiling of the Ellis Island Great Hall.

Rafael Guastavino received this contract due to the much lower price he could quote because his system served as its own scaffolding.

Rafael Guastavino was responsible for a series of surviving rowhouses with unusual Mooresque features on West 78th Street, on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

Rafael Guastavino lived with his aunt and uncle when he studied architecture in Barcelona, and he had a relationship with their adopted daughter Pilar.

Rafael Guastavino began a relationship with Francesca Ramirez, who was much younger than he was, and he pretended Francesca was his daughter until they moved to North Carolina in the early 1890s.

In North Carolina Rafael Guastavino completed a number of projects: his work is found in Duke Chapel in Durham, the Jefferson Standard Building in Greensboro, the Motley Memorial in Chapel Hill, and Basilica Shrine of St Mary in Wilmington.

Rafael Guastavino is buried in the crypt of the Basilica of St Lawrence, Asheville, which he designed in 1905.