Frei Paul Otto 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.
15 Facts About Frei Otto
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Frei Otto was born in Siegmar, Germany, and grew up in Berlin.
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Frei Otto studied architecture in Berlin before being drafted into the Luftwaffe as a fighter pilot in the last years of World War II.
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Frei Otto was interned in a prisoner of war camp near Chartres and with his aviation engineering training and lack of material and an urgent need for housing, began experimenting with tents for shelter.
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Frei Otto began a private practice in Germany in 1952.
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Frei Otto earned a doctorate in tensioned constructions in 1954.
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Frei Otto's saddle-shaped cable-net music pavilion at the Bundesgartenschau in Kassel 1955 brought him his first significant attention.
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Frei Otto specialised in lightweight tensile and membrane structures, and pioneered advances in structural mathematics and civil engineering.
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Frei Otto founded the Institute for Lightweight Structures at the university of Stuttgart in 1964 and headed the institute until his retirement as university professor.
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Frei Otto has lectured worldwide and taught at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, where he designed some of the research facilities buildings of the school's forest campus in Hooke Park.
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Until his death, Frei Otto remained active as an architect and engineer, and as consultant to his protege Mahmoud Bodo Rasch for a number of projects in the Middle East.
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On request of Christoph Ingenhoven, Frei Otto designed the "Light eyes" for Stuttgart 21.
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Frei Otto remarked in 2010 that the construction should be stopped because of the difficult geology.
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Frei 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.
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Frei Otto himself had been told earlier that he had won the prize by the executive director of the Pritzker Prize, Martha Thorne.