Abelardo Lafuente Research Project

Open Tank to spread the discoveries written at Leonardo Perez A. PhD dissertation at Alcalá de Henares University (Madrid, Spain) about the Spanish Architecture imprint in China (but also in Philippines, USA and Mexico) designed by Abelardo Lafuente García-Rojo (Madrid 1871- Shanghai 1931) at the beginning of the XX century. Led by Alvaro Leonardo, Spanish PhD. Architect who discovered this forbidden figure for Shanghai´s foreign architecture episode. Alvaro started a solo research in 2009 at Shanghai´s different archives, did his first public lecture during World Expo Fair 2010 Shanghai and started compiling all discovered info at eight different countries from 2015 until he presented the complete dissertation in 2019 at Madrid, Spain. Now as Independent Scholar is trying to disseminate all his discoveries around to get closer the cultural links between Spain and China, ties that started 500 years ago when Spanish arrived into Asia surrounding the world for first time ever in the History. Lafuente is nowadays a foot note in Shanghai´s Architecture History and yet he deserves a chapter of his own as other relevant foreign architectural firms as: Laszlo Hudec Architect, Palmer and Turner Architects and Surveyors, Atkinson and Dallas, Algar and Co, Denham and Rose, Leonard and Veysseyre, Moorhead and Halse, Becker and Baedecker or Davies and Thomas. The unknown professional career of Abelardo Lafuente as an architect and builder is 34 years old (1898-1931), being the first 15 years in Manila and the later 19 between Shanghai, Los Angeles and Tijuana. He worked without partners for 11 years, another 4 years in association with the American G.O. Wootten (1916-1919), as well as 4 more with the Russian Alexander Yaron (1925-1928), and from Los Angeles and Tijuana between 1927 and 1930.