Avelino Paterno undertook military training at the School for Reserve Commission, in Tarlac, Philippines in the late 1930s, taking part in extensive active service during the Second World War. He completed his architectural training at the Mapua Institute of Technology (now University of Mapua) in 1946. Details of his early career are unclear but he is recorded as enrolling in the 1957-58 post-graduate course run by the Architectural Association’s Department of Tropical Architecture, in London. Following graduation, Paterno appears to have returned to the Philippines and by 1961 was living in Manila, employed as Senior Architect for the Bureau of Public Works and serving as Professor of Architectural Design and Tropical Architecture, at F.E.A.T.I. University, Manila – whilst also active as the Associate Editor for the Philippine Architecture and Building Journal.

Sources

• Architectural Association Student Register 1945-1972, AA Archives
• Architectural Association Council Minutes Books, 24th February, 1958, p237. AA Archives
• Architectural Association Membership Register, 1961
• Philippine Architecture and Building Journal, 1961, pp3, 59
• Effective Public Administration: Imperative to National Progress, Philippine FOA Fellows Association, 1967, p236.