Architectural Record 2015-04

ARCHITECTURAL RECORD APRIL 2015
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PHOTOGRAPHY: © CHRISTINE KANSTINGER (TOP); INGENHOVEN UND PARTNER ARCHITEKTEN (BOTTOM)
Frei Otto Wins
Pritzker, Dies at 89
BY ANNA FIXSEN
german architect Frei Otto, renowned for
his lightweight tensile structures, was named
the winner of the 2015 Pritzker Architecture
Prize March 10. The abrupt announcement
came a day after Otto died, at the age of 89,
in Germany.
“Throughout his life, Frei Otto has produced
imaginative, fresh, unprecedented spaces
and constructions,” wrote the jury in their
citation. “He has also created knowledge.
Herein resides his deep influence: not in forms
to be copied but through the paths that have
been opened by his research and discoveries.”
Otto learned of his award earlier this year
when the prize’s executive director, Martha
Thorne, traveled to his home in Warmbronn,
Germany, a city near Stuttgart.
Otto’s works include a diverse array of
constructions and installations that broadened
the architectural possibilities of grid shells,
pneumatic structures, canopies, and lattices.
He is best known for his cable-net structure for
the German Pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal
and an expansive canopy for the 1972 Munich
Olympics, which stretched over the Games’
stadium, pool, and public areas.
Like his unconventional work, Otto’s training
took an extraordinary path: he was
initially prevented from studying architecture
because he was drafted into the German army
during World War II. As a prisoner of war in
France, Otto became, in effect, camp architect,
learning to work frugally with minimal
materials. After the war, he studied architecture
at the Technical University of Berlin, and,
in 1952, founded his own office in that city.
Otto, who was fascinated by natural forms
—from soap bubbles to spider webs—had a
collaborative and wide-ranging approach to
research and design, and frequently worked
with philosophers, scientists, historians, and
also his wife, Ingrid.
“He merged architecture and engineering
as a collaborative process,” says German
architect Stefan Behnisch. “Today everyone
talks about integrated design process, but I
think it goes back to Frei Otto.” In fact, Otto
collaborated with Behnisch’s father, Günter,
for the Olympic-park roof. As a child, Behnisch
remembers visiting his father’s office, sitting
You cannot think about architecture without
thinking about its relationship to the street.
—Renzo Piano, who designed the new Whitney Museum in New York,
speaking at a lecture at Columbia University, March 11, 2015
Frei Otto (left) was best known for his tent-like roofing
system for the 1972 Munich Olympics. The work marked a
stark departure from Germany’s heavy traditional
architecture.
in on meetings, and watching the iconic
canopies go up.
“The construction of the Olympic facilities
is when Germany showed a different face to
the world,” says Behnisch. “The architecture of
the Third Reich was very monumental, but Frei
created, with other postwar architects, a very
contrary image. He showed architecture could
be light, that architecture could be playful.”
Unlike many past Pritzker laureates, Otto
didn’t fill the classic starchitect bill—his
influence was more understated, manifest in
a vast body of research. Winner of the 2014
Pritzker Shigeru Ban, who partnered with
Otto to design the Japanese pavilion at the 2000
Hannover Expo, wrote, “His achievements,
rather than just being his ‘works,’ have become
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