[3] His mother was an artist educated first in the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design in Washington, D.C. and then at Havana's Academy of San Alejandro while his father attended Cornell University and returned to Cuba to become a contractor-architect.

[1] Mario Torroella is the youngest of their three sons, following Juan III, the eldest, and Luis, a Cuban revolutionary who opposed the Castro regime.

[1] Torroella then attended Dartmouth College where he was influenced by the books of Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier and Swiss architecture critic Sigfried Giedion.

[3] Through them Torroella would meet leading members of the Cuban art community including René Portocarrero, Raul Milián, Eduardo Abela, Hugo Consuegra, Estopiñán and others.

[8] The two bonded over their Cuban and Catalonian heritage and an admiration for the arts, leading Sert to become an influential mentor to Torroella that helped shape his early career.

He remained with Sert through the early 1960s, during which time he also met his future wife Isabelle Berangere Gambier, a French citizen who went on to study fashion design in Paris.

[4] Torroella is a Modernist known for his unique approach of integrating color into public buildings in a departure from the standard neutral tones, as well as an emphasis on human scale as espoused by Le Corbusier and Josep Lluis Sert.

[14][15] In addition to its scale, the project was noteworthy for showcasing Torroella’s signature use of color to offset Modernism’s tendency toward imposing and industrial aesthetics.

Completed in 1989, Torroella led the HMFH Architects team as Design Director and utilized an unconventional application of vivid red accent coloring to add vibrancy and contrast the widespread gray of the concrete.

[1] Following his return to the United States and graduation from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Torroella began exhibiting his art in 1962 following an invitation by the prominent Puerto Rican art critic, professor, and El Mirador Azul co-founder Ernesto Jaime Ruiz de la Mata at the museum of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras.

[4] He is known for his unique approach of integrating color into public buildings, such as schools, in a departure from the standard neutrality of whites and grays, as well as an emphasis on human scale.

Torroella draws influence from the work of Joan Miró, Diego Velázquez, Francisco Goya, Max Beckmann, Oskar Kokoschka, Edvard Munch, as well as traditional African art.

[1][21] The themes and subjects explored in Torroella's work include alienation, violence, beauty, sorrow, mysticism, spirituality, and death.

He co-founded the firm HMFH Architects and with them has won the American School & University’s William Caudill Citation and four Walter Taylor Awards from the AASA and the AIA.

[39] The library’s permanent collection also features work by other prominent artists including Dale Chihuly, Salvador Dalí, and Peter Max.

Torroella had internally displaced persons (IDPs) protection owing to his unique circumstances with Cuba, though as a French citizen Isabelle was required to return to France and they would remain in contact through correspondences and occasional visits.

He remained with Exxon for the duration of his career until retiring in the early 2000s as an executive of their International Division four decades later, after which he relocated to the Brickell area of Miami.

[56] Antonio Martin-Rivero's father, Pedro Martin Rivero, was a leader of the Cuban Independence movement and owned a pro-independence newspaper in Havana that was banished by the Spanish government, causing him to emigrate to Philadelphia.

As governess, she was charged with the care of Martínez-Ybor's children, initially in their New York City residence shortly after she first arrived to the area from Ireland.

[citation needed] She became acquainted with Juan Torroella I, a close friend of Martínez-Ybor, in Tampa and after their eventual marriage they settled permanently in Havana.