Luis Moya and tile vaults in post-war spain

Abstract

In the precarious economic conditions prevailing after the Spanish Civil War, tiled vault construction was resumed to economize on steel and capitalize on the cheap labour available at the time.
Luis Moya excelled in this area, re-exploring this construction technique. Moya benefited in this regard from his thorough knowledge of the early twentieth century works of the Guastavinos in New York acquired during his visits to the U.S.A. with Professor Collins.
His architecture featured tiled vaults with medium-sized spans, normally reinforced with exposed internal Basque tiled arches or ribbing on the extrados.
He described his architectural experimentation in this field in a book titled "Bóvedas tabicadas" (tile vaults), one of the few extensive treatises on the subject, which surpassed the papers published earlier by Fornés-Gurrea and Bergós.