With the tent roof of the Olympic Stadium in Munich one who created the Germany’s most important buildings of the 20th century: Frei Otto. Now he has died at the age of 89 years. Posthumously, he is the most prestigious architectural award in the world, the Pritzker Prize, awarded.
Everything should have been so nice. In two weeks, the jury of the prestigious Pritzker Prize wanted to announce that, often referred to as the “Nobel Prize for Architecture” award goes to Frei Otto this year. In mid-May, shortly before his 90th birthday, the German star architect should then receive the award in Miami from the hand of his famous colleague Frank Gehry.
But that should not Otto experience. The creator of the tent roof of the Olympic Stadium in Munich died Monday at the age of 89 years, as his widow Ingrid Deutsche Presse-Agentur confirmed on Tuesday. The Pritzker jury preferred the promulgation of the ceremony then. Otto is only the second German – Gottfried Böhm 1986 – the 1979 annual award receives and the first to get him posthumously.
“His influence will continue noticeable”
Otto’s work was “easy, open to nature and light, non-hierarchical, democratic, affordable and energy efficient,” said the jury their selection. The news of his death was “very sad,” said Tom Pritzker, chairman of The Hyatt Foundation, which awards the prize. “The career of Frei Otto is a role model for generations of architects and his influence will continue noticeable.” The award ceremony in May in Miami will now be on an assessment of Otto’s life and work.
Born in 1925 at the Saxon Siegmar Otto was the son of a sculptor and pupil of the renowned architect Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969). The unusual first name “Free” is supposedly an invention of the mother. It should have been her life’s motto. Early on, Otto worked with aircraft and their construction. Finally, experiments on aerodynamics and the principles stretchable membrane he came to his “natural constructions” said load-bearing structures.
Master of Floating and Swinging
Otto presented playful and poetic designs – in a time when the demand was more of a functional building due to the ravages of war in Germany. After many years operated an architectural office in Berlin, advised the University of Stuttgart in the 60s an “Institute for Lightweight Structures” for the master of Floating and Swinging a. There he could experiment until his official retirement as head of the institute in 1990.
In addition to the tent roof of the Olympic Stadium in Munich, he designed in collaboration with colleagues, inter alia, the Japanese Pavilion at Expo 2000 in Hanover and the cobweb roof over the German tent pavilion for the World Expo 1967 in Montréal. Also in Kassel, Cologne and the Arab world, Otto worked.
Otto received yet from the ceremony
For a time he also worked on the controversial railway station project Stuttgart 21, then distanced himself but thereof. The award-winning architect never lost sight of the goal, science and nature to reconcile. Some of his visions remained on the drawing board limited, including a wide area sonnenbeschirmte “city in the desert” or covered by a giant transparent plastic dome “city in the Arctic”.
After the death of star architects one consolation: Otto of the ceremony with the Pritzker Prize – Learn more – the highest award in the industry. The decision had already been taken earlier this year and was then brought to him directly, the jury said. “I have never done anything to receive this award,” he said then. “The winning prizes is not my goal in life I’m trying to help poor people, but what can I say, I’m very happy…”
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