German de la Torre, a Colombian Architect in London

German (pronounced Herman) has come a long way from his career beginnings to become a fundamental member of design teams producing some of the most prestigious and important projects in the planet in recent years. He has led teams and packages for buildings such as the Tower 3 - World Trade Centre in New York, Apple Campus new Head Quarters project in Cupertino California, Riverside South tower for JPMorgan in Canary Wharf London, the Leadenhall building commonly known as the cheese grater in the city of London, NEO Bankside residential in London, the Commercial Bank of Qatar headquarters tower in Doha, Banco Ciudad of Buenos Aires headquarters building in Buenos Aires Argentina, among many others.

Before graduating from Architecture in Bogota, German along with 3 of his friends won the first prize for an important 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 led these young professionals to setup their own practice at an early stage in their careers. "we found ourselves suddenly with our own office, with the responsibility of leading the design team and consultants for a multimillion project and we did not even have the chance to think about it, it was a huge responsibility with the client. We had to perform at top level so we were working very hard 7 days a week" says German recalling those memories.
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 new Head Quarters building for Banco Ciudad under construction "it was an amazing experience, I will always be very proud of this building. In a country of very capable people but where resources are more limited compared to the UK, results were difficult to obtain at the level you would expect on a Foster’s building. This project is a fine design and I am sure it will become an important Architectural referential in South America in the 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 has also been keynote speaker at the Universidad of Buenos Aires, Universidad Nacional de Colombia and Universidad Javeriana in Bogota.

*Fragment from conversations with German de la Torre by Archimerica 

                                                                                                                                               Archimerica 2013