Raúl Aguilar Batres (December 1, 1910 – May 13, 1964) was a Guatemalan civil engineer. He is the inventor of the street naming and house numbering conventions that are used in Guatemala City and other cities in Guatemala.

[edit] Biography

Aguilar Batres was born December 1, 1910 in Guatemala City. He graduated from the Universidad Nacional in 1939 with a degree in civil engineering. He served as a university professor, as an assistant engineer on the Joint Commission on the boundary with Mexico, and in the Guatemala City Department of Planning. Augilar Batres devised a system to rename and number the streets of Guatemala City, dividing the city into 25 zones. North-south streets were numbered as Avenidas and east-west streets as Calles. Hyphenated numbers were assigned to addresses to indicate distance in meters from a specified cross street. The system was introduced in 1947^[1] and subsequently adopted by other cities such as Quetzaltenango and Antigua. Augilar Batres died May 13, 1964.

[edit] Legacy

Calle de Amatitlán in Guatemala was renamed Calzada Raúl Aguilar Batres within a few years of Augilar Batres' death. A monument, featuring a marble bust sculpted by Rodolfo Galeotti Torres was created in 1970 and placed on Calzada Augilar Batres in zone 11 of Guatemala City.

[edit] References

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