German de la Torre G

German de la Torre, a Colombian Architect's tale in London

From humble origins as a young professional from South America in a country struggling with an economy in crisis, this Colombian Architect has come to form fundamental part of leading teams designing some of the most prestigious and important projects in the planet at the beginning of this century. German has run various design packages for the Tower 3 - World Trade Centre in New York, Apple Campus new Head Quarters building in Cupertino California, Riverside South building for JPMorgan in Canary Wharf London, the Leadenhall building in the city of London, NEO Bankside residential in London, the Commercial Bank of Qatar headquarters building in Doha, Banco Ciudad of Buenos Aires headquarters building in Buenos Aires Argentina, among many others.

Born in Bogota, German studied Architecture in the capital where he graduated with top final project qualifications. Just before graduating, he and three of his friends won the first prize in a competition to design a large leisure complex containing hotel, cottages and a golf resort in an area of incredible natural beauty just over 120km south-west from the capital.  This event lead these young professionals to setup their own practice at a very early stage in their career. "suddenly we found ourselves with our own office with the responsibility of leading the design team and consultants for a multimillion project and we did not even have time to think about it, it was a huge responsibility with the client. We had to perform at top level so we were working incredibly long hours 7 days a week" says German recalling those memories with visible fondness.

Between 1996 and 2000 German won a number of other commissions and prizes in various competitions before deciding to move to Europe in 2001 looking to strengthening his formation with international experience.

Today, German performs as a senior Architect in the award winning office of Lord Norman Foster where he joined in 2010. In London, he has also worked for the studios of Sir Richard Rogers, Lisfchutz Davidson Sandilands and Avanti Architects.

By the end of 2012, German returned to London from Buenos Aires, Argentina where he spent 1 and a half years in charge of the Design Development and construction for the new Head Quarters building for Banco Ciudad "it was an amazing experience, I will always be very proud of running this building in a country of very capable people but where resources are far more limited compared to the UK and Europe in general which made the results more difficult to obtain at the expected top end level. This building is a fine design and I am sure it will become an important Architectural referential in South America in the near future. I left a big piece of my heart in Buenos Aires, a city to love".

German has Lectured at the Bartlett School of Planning in the University College of London and he has also been keynote speaker at the Universidad of Buenos Aires, Universidad Nacional de Colombia and Universidad Javeriana in Bogota.