This dissertation presents the life and work of the Leopold Rother, the German architect who was born in 1894 in Breslau, and due to his Jewish ancestry had to leave Germany in 1936 and emigrated to Colombia. Through his projects and almost 40 years of lecturing at various universities in Colombia, he was one of the first and foremost architects responsible for the spread of modern architecture in the country. In comparison with other countries such as Brazil and Mexico whose transition to modern architecture became a subject in international publications early on, the developments in Colombia were largely unknown abroad. Some of Leopold Rother’s architectural works are known in Colombia. In 1984 his son Hans Rother published a book on his life and work, but there are works in Colombia that still little known. This is also the case for the architect’s earlier work in Germany An undertaking of this dissertation was to research these less known works in Germany, their authorship and to determine the nature and manner of Rother’s involvement. Here, for the first time, are presented some of Rother’s projects that were unknown, or had only been referred to. The same is presented for those projects carried out in Colombia that were influenced by the European avant-garde and Brazilian architecture. These are buildings in modern style, using reinforced concrete techniques brought from Europe and adapted to local conditions and the tropical climate. Rother’s pedagogical achievements were a further aspect of this research. During his time as a professor he left numerous documents in lectures and files. These lectures which had not been analysed to date and also not correlated together with his projects were researched in detail in this dissertation

La presente disertación profundiza la obra arquitectónica del arquitecto Alemán Leopold Rother y su aporte al movimiento moderno de arquitectura en Colombia. Rother sintetiza la vanguardia arquitectónica europea de comienzos del siglo XX, el desarrollo de las técnicas de membranas de concreto reforzado, adaptándose al medio y clima del trópico en Colombia.