Frei Paul Otto (; 31 May 1925 – 9 March 2015) was a German architect and structural engineer noted for his use of lightweight structures, in particular tensile and membrane structures, including the roof of the Olympic Stadium in Munich for the 1972 Summer Olympics.

Otto won the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 2006 and was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2015, shortly before his death.

Early life

Otto was born in , Germany, and grew up in Berlin. He studied architecture in Berlin before being drafted into the Luftwaffe as a fighter pilot in the last years of World War II. He was interned in a prisoner of war camp near Chartres (France) and with his aviation engineering training and lack of material and an urgent need for housing, began experimenting with tents for shelter. After the war he studied briefly in the US and visited Erich Mendelsohn, Mies van der Rohe, Richard Neutra, and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Career

thumb|1972 Munich Olympic Stadium

Otto began a private practice in Germany in 1952. He earned a doctorate in tensioned constructions in 1954. brought him his first significant attention.

Otto specialised in lightweight tensile and membrane structures, and pioneered advances in structural mathematics and civil engineering. Otto founded the Institute for Lightweight Structures at the university of Stuttgart in 1964 and headed the institute until his retirement as university professor. Otto subsequently designed the roof of the 1972 Munich Olympic Arena. He lectured worldwide and taught at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, where he also designed some of the research facilities buildings of the school's forest campus in Hooke Park.

On request of Christoph Ingenhoven, Otto was consultant for special construction for the design of the "Light eyes" for Stuttgart 21. – drop-shaped overlights in the park, that descend onto the tracks to support the ceiling. Otto remarked in 2010 that the construction should be stopped because of the difficult geology.

Otto died on 9 March 2015; he was to be publicly announced as the winner of the 2015 Pritzker Prize on 23 March but his death meant the committee announced his award on 10 March.

  • 1980 – Honorary doctorate of science from the University of Bath
  • 1982 – Großer BDA Preis
  • 1996/97 – Wolf Prize in Architecture
  • 2006 – Praemium Imperiale in Architecture
  • 2015 – Pritzker Architecture Prize

See also

  • Gridshell

References

Further reading

  • Conrad Roland: Frei Otto – Spannweiten. Ideen und Versuche zum Leichtbau. Ein Werkstattbericht von Conrad Roland. Ullstein, Berlin, Frankfurt/Main und Wien 1965.
  • Philip Drew: Frei Otto – Form and Structure, 1976, ,
  • Philip Drew: Tensile Architecture, 1979, ,
  • Muriel Emanuel, Dennis Sharp: "Contemporary Architects", New York: St. Martin's Press. 1980. p. 600.
  • Frei Otto, Bodo Rasch: Finding Form: Towards an Architecture of the Minimal, 1996,
  • Winfried Nerdinger: Frei Otto, Complete Works: Lightweight Construction – Natural Design, 2005, , - published on the occasion of the exhibition Frei Otto Lightweight Construction, Natural Design at the Architekturmuseum der Technischen Universität München in der Pinakothek der Moderne from 26 May to 28 August 2005, and cataloguing over 200 buildings and projects dating from the years 1951-2004
  • Frei Otto's official website
  • Frei Otto: Spanning The Future Documentary film's official Website
  • Japan Pavilion Expo 2000 – About the roof structure
  • SL Rasch GmbH Homepage
  • Last recorded interview with Frei Otto, about his life and receiving the Pritzker Prize
  • Uncube Nr. 33 Frei Otto – by uncube magazine