Frei Otto Quotes

Germany, Architect
May 31, 1925 – March, 9, 2015.

Frei Paul Otto (German: [ˈfʁaɪ ˈɔtoː]; 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.

Also known as Engineer

We have big, big problems - flooding, earthquake, and many foolish things which now people are doing - I mean, these self-made catastrophes. We are able to give to every man on the street the possibilities to help himself. And to fight for this was one of my duties.

Frei Otto
- People
- Help
My architectural drive was to design new types of buildings to help poor people, especially following natural disasters and catastrophes... I will use whatever time is left to me to keep doing what I have been doing, which is to help humanity.

Frei Otto
- People
- Time
- Help

Everything man is doing in architecture is to try to go against nature. Of course we have to understand nature to know how far we have to go against nature. The secret, I think, of the future is not doing too much. All architects have the tendency to do too much.

Frei Otto
My architecture is the architecture of survival.

Frei Otto
- Architecture
- Survival
Most architects think in drawings, or did think in drawings; today, they think on the computer monitor. I always tried to think three dimensionally. The interior eye of the brain should be not flat but three dimensional so that everything is an object in space. We are not living in a two-dimensional world.

Frei Otto
- World
- Today
- Space
Buildings are 'humane' only when they promote peaceful human co-existence.

Frei Otto
Why should we build very large spaces when they are not necessary? We can design halls spanning several kilometres and covering a whole city, but we have to ask, what does it really make? What does society really need?

Frei Otto
- Why
- Society
- City
I have never been satisfied with a piece of work I have been actively involved in, and would never want to be.

Frei Otto
- Work

My hope is that light, flexible architecture might bring about a new and open society.

Frei Otto
- Hope
- Society
- Light
I have only one dream. It is the oldest of humanity, of man, in time. It is paradise. I would like to give paradise to everyone.

Frei Otto
- Time
- Dream
- Humanity