NATIONAL DRAMATIC ARTS SCHOOL
The dramatic arts school is one of five structures comprising the National Schools of Arts. The renowned arts institution was commissioned in its entirety by Fidel Castro in the post-revolutionary period. Mimicking a medieval Italian city, the School’s winding alleyways carve out rounded classrooms topped with thin-shelled tiled vaults.
- Location: Cubanacan, West Havana
- Architect: Roberto Gottardi
- Start of construction: 1961
- End of construction: Construction halted 1965
- Site dimensions: 85 mx 49 m x 6 m (280 ft x 160 ft x 20 ft)
- Structural system: Barrel vault
- Construction material: Brick and terracotta tile
The tile-vaulted structures in the Dramatic Arts School can be analyzed as barrel vaults. Because the length, L, is much larger than the radius, r, the vault exhibits some beam behavior. However, since the shell is continuously supported, it behaves predominantly as a series of arches under uniform gravity load. This distributed load causes vertical and horizontal force components that are transferred to the wall holding up the barrel vault and the steel tie bars between the arch ends, respectively.
BARREL VAULT ANALYZED AS AN ARCH
BARREL VAULT ANALYZED AS A BEAM
Student authors of project:
Katie Kennedy
Zak DeGuilio