Alexander Acatos

Alexander Pericles Acatos (born February 10, 1873 in Galați , Principality of Romania , † April 7, 1950 in Zurich ) was a Greek - Swiss civil engineer who worked in railway construction. Its best-known buildings are the Landwasser Viaduct and the extension of the Zurich main station .

biography

The son of a trader came from the Greek city of Skiathos on the island of the same name in the Northern Sporades . From 1890 to 1895, Acatos studied civil engineering in Zurich at the Eidgenössisches Polytechnikum (today's ETH Zurich ). He then worked as an assistant to Professor Wilhelm Ritter . From 1898 to 1903 he worked for the Rhaetian Railway . During this time he was responsible for the alignment of the Albula Railway and for the planning and execution of the Surava - Filisur section . This includes numerous engineering structures, with the Landwasser Viaduct being the landmark of the railway line. In 1902 he married Silvia Bazzighèr from Chur , with whom he had three children; four years later he was naturalized in the municipality of Casaccia .

From 1907 to 1912 Acatos worked for the Bodensee-Toggenburg-Bahn as an assistant to the chief engineer. As part of this activity, he was initially responsible as a section engineer for the construction of the St. Gallen - Romanshorn section including the Sitter Viaduct until 1910 , and then the section between Ebnat and Nesslau . In 1913 he entered the service of the Swiss Federal Railways and finally rose to the position of senior engineer at the general management in Bern before retiring in 1938. Among other things, from 1924 he designed plans for the expansion of Zurich main station . The Gleishalle and the transverse hall, which were both built in 1929/30, were originally intended only as temporary arrangements, but still exist today and are under monument protection. They are considered to be important witnesses of the civil engineering art of the inter-war period and are the oldest larger track roofs in the world that were created for an exclusively electrically operated railway.

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c Alexander Acatos. geneanet.org, accessed on July 28, 2020 (other sources name Baden as the place of death).
↑ ^a ^b Alexander Acatos. First engineers in Switzerland - a biographical directory, accessed on July 28, 2020 .
↑ Naturalizations from 1801 to 1960 (PDF, 14.9 MB) Graubünden State Archives, 1965, accessed on July 28, 2020 .
↑ Biographical data on local / regional traffic in Eastern Switzerland. (PDF, 173 kB) Swiss Family Research, 2003, accessed on July 28, 2020 .
↑ AREV No. 1724/2019, revision and addition to the City of Zurich (SBB track field). (PDF, 36.5 MB) In: Inventory of listed buildings of supra-communal importance. Building Department of the Canton of Zurich, Office for Spatial Development, 2019, p. 2 , accessed on July 28, 2020 .

personal data
SURNAME	Acatos, Alexander
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Acatos, Alexander Pericles (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Greek-Swiss civil engineer
DATE OF BIRTH	February 10, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH	Galați , Principality of Romania
DATE OF DEATH	April 7, 1950
Place of death	Zurich

[gen-1] Alexander Acatos. geneanet.org, accessed on July 28, 2020 (other sources name Baden as the place of death).

[ing-2] Alexander Acatos. First engineers in Switzerland - a biographical directory, accessed on July 28, 2020 .

[3] Naturalizations from 1801 to 1960 (PDF, 14.9 MB) Graubünden State Archives, 1965, accessed on July 28, 2020 .

[4] Biographical data on local / regional traffic in Eastern Switzerland. (PDF, 173 kB) Swiss Family Research, 2003, accessed on July 28, 2020 .

[5] AREV No. 1724/2019, revision and addition to the City of Zurich (SBB track field). (PDF, 36.5 MB) In: Inventory of listed buildings of supra-communal importance. Building Department of the Canton of Zurich, Office for Spatial Development, 2019, p. 2 , accessed on July 28, 2020 .