Frei Otto

Frei Otto (1925 to 2015) was a German architect and structural engineer best known for lightweight tensile and membrane structures, the most famous being the roof of the Olympic Stadium in Munich built for the 1972 Summer Olympics. Born in Siegmar and raised in Berlin, he studied architecture in Berlin before being drafted as a Luftwaffe pilot; as a prisoner of war near Chartres in France he began experimenting with tents as emergency shelter. He opened a private practice in Germany in 1952, earned a doctorate in tensioned constructions in 1954, and drew national attention with a saddle-shaped cable-net music pavilion at the 1955 Kassel garden exhibition. In 1964 he founded the Institute for Lightweight Structures at the University of Stuttgart and led it until he retired. His major works include the West German Pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal, designed with Rolf Gutbrod, and, with Shigeru Ban, the paper roof structure of the Japanese Pavilion at Expo 2000. He received the RIBA Royal Gold Medal and was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2015, shortly before his death on 9 March 2015.