Batista, Eugenio, 1900-1992

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Batista, Eugenio, 1900-1992

Eugenio Batista (1900-1992) was a Cuban architect and author who worked in Cuba in the 20th century.

Batista completed high school courses in the United States and Cuba and received an architecture degree from the University of Havana in 1924. He moved on to work as a draftsman at the architecture firm of Walker and Gillette while taking summer and evening classes at Columbia University in New York, eventually graduating with a Master of Fine Arts in Architecture from Princeton University and working as a professor there before returning to Cuba to practice his profession in 1939.

Batista was involved in such projects as the building of the Bay of Havana amphitheater; the placement of the José Martí statue in the Parque Central; the design of the church and park at Yumurí; and the renovation of Havana's Payret Theater. He was professor and acting dean of the School of Architecture at Havana’s St. Thomas of Villanova Catholic University in the 1950s, and worked as a professor in design at various schools after his exile in 1961 including the University of Oregon and the University of Puerto Rico. In 1974 he was given a Fulbright scholarship to teach architecture at the Pontifical Xavierian University in Bogotá, Colombia.

In his retirement he wrote a book on church architecture and the history of the Catholic liturgy titled El culto cristiano: ¿ceremonia o dedicación? (1981). He was a founding member of the Hermandad Nazaret, an exile religious organization.

Batista died in Miami at the age of 91.