Polifactory and Círculo de Bellas Artes, in collaboration with Casa Asia, present this lecture that aims to explain clearly and simply a story that doesn't only represent the first Spanish architectonic mark in China, but it constitutes an example of entrepreneurship and eagerness to self-improvement of the Spanish community abroad.

All of this through unknown information, with original documents and old and new photographs of its buildings and remains of Spanish ceramics.

Abelardo Lafuente's story is linked, among others, to the figure of one of the most important Spanish entrepreneurs in Asia of the 19th century: Antonio Ramos, the magnate from Granada that introduced cinema in China. He was the only Spanish architect established in the period of greatest splendor of colonial Shanghai, between 1913 and 1931, where he introduced the architectonic style "Spanish Morisco" and built a broad variety of magnificent architecture. Lafuente died in Shanghai in December 1931, after a life full of anecdotes, projects and trips around the world, whose details have been discovered in the last three years in Shanghai and Madrid by Álvaro Leonardo, after a deep investigation that is still open and in evolution.

Delivered by: 
Álvaro Leonardo, Spanish architect member of COACV and resident in Shanghai. He is co-founder and director of the multidisciplinary studio Polifactory, which combines architecture with other areas of design in Brazil, Spain and China.