A Conversation With Frei Otto PDF

A Conversation with
Frei Otto
Conversations:
A Princeton Architectural Press series
Other titles in this series
Santiago Calatrava
978-1-56898-325-7
Le Corbusier
978-1-56898-196-3
Louis I. Khan
978-1-56898-149-9
Rem Koolhaas
978-1-88523-202-1
Ian McHarg
978-1-56898-620-3
Paul Rand
978-1-56898-725-5
Peter Smithson
978-1-56898-461-2
Mies van der Rohe

978-1-56898-753-8
A Conversation with
Frei Otto
Juan María Songel
Princeton Architectural Press | New York

Princeton Architectural Press Editing, English edition: Nicola Bednarek
37 East Seventh Street Design, English edition: Paul Wagner
New York, New York 10003
Special thanks to:
For a free catalog of books, Nettie Aljian, Bree Anne Apperley,
call 1.800.722.6657 Sara Bader, Janet Behning, Becca Casbon,
Visit our website at www.papress.com Carina Cha, Tom Cho, Penny (Yuen Pik) Chu,
Carolyn Deuschle, Russell Fernandez,
First published under the title Frei Otto: Pete Fitzpatrick, Jan Haux, Linda Lee,
Conversación con Juan María Songel by Laurie Manfra, John Myers, Katharine Myers,
Editorial Gustavo Gili, Barcelona, Spain, Steve Royal, Dan Simon, Andrew Stepanian,
in 2008. Jennifer Thompson, Joseph Weston, and
Deb Wood of Princeton Architectural Press
Text © Frei Otto, Juan María Songel —Kevin C. Lippert, publisher
Spanish edition © 2008
Editorial Gustavo Gili, SL, Barcelona Library of Congress
English edition © 2010 Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Princeton Architectural Press, New York Otto, Frei, 1925–
All rights reserved [Frei Otto. English]
Printed and bound in 2010 A conversation with Frei Otto / Juan María
14 13 11 10 5 4 3 2 1 First edition Songel.
p. cm. — (Conversations)
No part of this book may be used or Originally published: Frei Otto : conversación
reproduced in any manner without written con Juan María Songel. Barcelona, Spain :
permission from the publisher, except in Editorial Gustavo Gili, 2008.
the context of reviews. Every reasonable ISBN 978-1-56898-884-9 (alk. paper)
attempt has been made to identify owners 1. Otto, Frei, 1925—Interviews.
of copyright. Errors or omissions will be 2. Architects—Germany—Interviews.
corrected in subsequent editions. 3. Architecture—Germany—History—
20th century. I. Songel, Juan María. II. Otto,
Text sources: Frei, 1925– Grundlagen einer Baukunst von
Original title of Frei Otto’s text: “Grundlagen Morgen. III. Title.
einer Baukunst von Morgen,” published in NA1088.O78A35 2010
Der Architekt (October 1997): 589–90. 720.92—dc22
2010007934
Design: Marián Bardal
Cover photograph: © Thomas Lüttge
Translation from the Spanish: Emily Tell
Contents
7 The Fundamentals of Future Architecture

Frei Otto
17 A Conversation with Frei Otto
87 Frei Otto, Investigator of the Processes of

Form Generation
Juan María Songel
96 Illustration Credits
The Fundamentals of
Future Architecture
Frei Otto | 1997
8
Architecture
The art of building is old, as old as man the builder. Until today,
it does not really require the architect. The architect has existed
for about six thousand years, and the engineer builder for 150
years. For millennia, the art of building played, if not the main
role, at least a fundamental role in all cultures—in technology, in
natural sciences, and in art. The division between art and science
is relatively new. Throughout history, the architect’s tasks have
grown and with them the specializations of all the building-
related professions. The architect needed help from the detail-
oriented scientist with mathematical gifts. Architecture is called
the “mother of the arts”; the engineer is its child who now claims
independence.
The Architect Today

Ecological consciousness—to protect not only man, but also
life as a whole—is a novelty in the area of architecture. In this
regard, the knowledge of the objective evolution of forms in
all areas of nature, technology, and art plays an important role;
it is a field where the architect has his new great mission.
If he does not know the processes of form generation, the
architect lacks control over his own doing; he must understand
the difference between what he does and what occurs in
autonomous processes. In the area of physics he receives
support from the engineer; in the humanities he lacks both the
knowledge and necessary collaborators, not because of a lack
of willingness to collaborate, but because those who work in
the humanities are specialized, and as specialists they are not
The Fundamentals of Future Architecture 9
in a position to respond to current demands and transcend the

borders of the disciplines. The architect is also alone in the area
of natural sciences, as the figure of the generalist scientist no
longer exists. He has to act like a scientist even though he is not
a scientist in the conventional sense. This is true especially for
the areas of biology, ethology, and ecology.
The essence of the architect’s profession has remained
unaltered since ancient times. The architect composes interior
and exterior forms and directs their construction; he must have
ideas and be an inventor; he must be able to understand and
advise people; and he must act as a good diplomat and justice
of the peace. In recent times changes have taken place, however.
The majority of the most distinguished architects today are
conductors who adapt the inventions and ideas of others in
order to, on occasion, give form to something new. Nevertheless,
the most important architects of our time continue to be the
composers who invent new forms and structures, creating the
intellectual basis to carry out new missions.
In a time like ours, oriented towards the economy, the old-
style architect is considered increasingly superfluous. For the
most part, he has been replaced by project managers who offer
all services, including the functions of the architect and the
engineer. Our engineering and architecture students frequently
approach the offices of project managers for employment,
thinking that they will find the origins of architecture there.
The “typical” autonomous architect, concerned about the
primordial architecture of housing, tries to continue in the same
manner as always. Today his social reputation is unjustifiably
10
damaged; he is reduced to being an uncreative imitator of

forms or a dreamer who designs unrealistically and cannot
be entrusted with budgets and deadlines. This type of “small”
architect desperately defends himself in light of this difficult
situation, but he cannot cope with the increasingly unfair
methods of job acquisition, especially when these are presented
as fair under a democratic camouflage.
The New Structural Engineer

Ideally, the structural engineer helps the architect with the
many tasks that he must perform: he takes care of all material
issues, supporting constructions and their structures, security,
durability, and injury prevention, and even paved areas, glazing,
application of paint, insulation, and installations. Increasingly,
he calculates not only loads and forces, but also mass, areas
and costs, and energy efficiency. All of this is very good.
The traditional stress analyst has turned into the
multifunctional engineer. In the field of technology, the
object and scope of his work must be in line with those of the
architect, in all types of projects. Nevertheless, the engineer’s
work is different from the architect’s, because it requires
specific knowledge, models of thought, and work techniques.
Today’s engineer needs skills that are different from those
of an architect. He must be an authentic scientist and try to
understand the nature of reality through experiments and
analysis.
The engineer’s tasks have increased considerably. A new way
of thinking is required, especially in the field of ecology oriented
towards energy, that is, in the effort to save material and energy,
to care for the environment, and to optimize construction.
Building
Constructions are auxiliary means, not ends in themselves.
For example, a bridge is a part of a human road system and
its purpose is to transcend the obstacle that is imposing upon
the communication between men. Constructions always have
a form, and some of them even have an unmistakable shape.
From the physical point of view, the best construction uses the
minimum amount of energy and material. Sometimes this type
of construction is especially beautiful. To build means to make
architecture real on the borders of knowledge.
As strange as it may seem to the non-expert, architects
and architecture students are much better at building than
engineers and engineering students. The reason is evident.
Architectural forms are constructions that have been optimized
according to tradition. The ability to build assumes the
knowledge of all architecture and construction forms, as well as
their development. To build means to advance this process, to
investigate, and to make. The development of buildings began
over ten thousand years ago and has reached an extremely
high level, but it is in no way a closed process. There are still an
infinite number of open possibilities, infinite discoveries to make.
Designing
Good architects are rare, and those who can teach how to design
buildings are even rarer. Teaching design as an artistic discipline
12
depends both on the aptitude of the professor and that of his

students. The capacity to design may be encouraged, but it
cannot be taught or tested in the classic sense, through lessons
or exams. Designing can only be advanced through examples.
Only someone who builds masterworks can educate masters.
Surprisingly, many talented architects and engineers are
self-taught, even if they were exposed during their youth to
academic studies and to the dangers of receiving inadequate
design education. The greatest danger of teaching design is
to bury talent through the teaching of false prophets, through
scientifically untenable theories, through the imposition of
subjective thought models, through moral pressure towards
specific formal concepts, or through the discouragement of
attempts to materialize visions. Our best students search for
their own path and persevere despite the inevitable conflicts
with their professors.
The Works of Engineering

The increasingly heard demand that architects must design
and build houses, and engineers the so-called works of
engineering—such as towers, bridges, canal locks, shells, and
lightweight roofs—does not lead to better houses, nor to better
bridges or more beautiful pavilions.
By now the concept of a work of engineering has become
commonplace. Although I view it with scepticism, I cannot
change this fact. For me there are no works of architects,
engineers, or amateurs, only works of architecture, which
are the ones I love and which I don’t want to miss.
Research
The big new ecological and biological tasks require a global
and integrated way of thinking and designing, especially
when dealing with works of great dimensions and significant
technological components. In the majority of cases even the best
architects or artistically gifted engineers are not yet capable to
cope with these challenges.
Today neither architects nor engineers carry out notable
research. They don’t get involved with either the humanities
or natural sciences. They don’t even try to approach problems
dealing with medicine, biology, or ethology, and they don’t arrive
at developments worthy of mention even in the common area
of construction. Up until now, the construction industry only
supports research projects that can produce short-term benefits.
To elevate the quality of construction, basic interdisciplinary
research must begin at once, with long-term objectives that
are passed on through many generations. Productive research
must be brave! Where are the experiments, developments,
and inventions that we need most? And specifically, where
are the incursions to new territories? What do we architects
and engineers know about man, about nature, and about the
phenomenon of art?
Philosophy
A young architect, who had already designed many good
buildings, once answered me in response to a question regard-
ing his ethics and his understanding of nature: “The philosophy
of architecture has to be passed down to us by established
14
architects. We have too much work. We have no other choice

than to follow the ways and the forms of our stars.”
Is the philosophy of architecture really an exclusive question
of the established? Shouldn’t every new generation search for
its own understanding of nature, man, art, architecture, through
profound observations and reflections, and thus create a basis
for their own creative activity? While the understanding of nature
and aesthetics are the key areas of philosophy, they have so
far only been traditionally considered in historic terms. In order
to have a current and future understanding of nature and art,
philosophy still doesn’t provide any information. The architect is
alone. He must look for his own ethics by himself if he doesn’t
want to become guilty. He can build his own aesthetics, but this
causes prejudices and makes designing difficult.
Running Head Title 15
Otto in his studio, Warmbronn, Stuttgart, Germany, 2004

A Conversation with
Frei Otto
2004
18
A conversation between Frei Otto and Juan María Songel, held

on June 7, 2004, in Frei Otto’s workshop-studio in Warmbronn
(Stuttgart, Germany).
Out of the rich and wide variety of aspects and

possibilities of analysis that your work and thought
offers, I would like to focus on the methodological,
experimental, and systematizing dimensions of your
work. The classic historiography of modern architecture
tends to place your work in the context of architecture
with greater emphasis on technology, arriving at the
start of high tech. However, I think that your historical
contribution would fit better within the tradition of the
pioneer engineers of new materials and their search for
and reflection on the resistant form, as well as within the
rationalizing approaches that characterized the origins
of modern architecture in the 1920s. It is well known that
you have had a close and productive relationship with
engineers such as Fred Severud,1 Ove Arup,2 and Ted
Happold.3 What did this relationship consist of and how
did it influence your career?
From 1952 to 1953 I had a close relationship with the German

engineer and bridge builder Fritz Leonhardt, who has been
described as practically being the inventor of television towers
and with whom I did a lot of work. 4 It was only later that I began
to work with Ove Arup and Ted Happold.
A Conversation with Frei Otto 19
How did you meet these engineers and how did your
relationship with them start?

Well, the process was really rather simple: a project came
up, some problems had to be resolved, and some contacts were
established. In the case of Ove Arup, our collaboration started
with our first project in Saudi Arabia (1965). 5 I simultaneously
started to work with Ted Happold, who was then one of
the directors of the department known as Structures 3 at
Ove Arup’s studio, and this collaboration has lasted through
time. Even today I collaborate with these three firms, although
my closest friends, Arup, Happold, and Leonhardt, have
passed away.
Which work or what occasion gave rise to the start of

your collaboration with Fritz Leonhardt?
It is a very strange story. I had studied in Berlin, and when I

wrote my doctoral thesis I had already published a few things. 6
Having read one of my articles published in the magazine
Bauwelt, the architect Erich Schelling, winner of the bid for the
Schwarzwaldhalle auditorium in Karlsruhe, wrote asking me for
help as a specialist. My professor of structures and director of
my doctoral thesis, Hellmuth Bickenbach, advised me to contact
Fritz Leonhardt. Ultimately, we didn’t carry out the work, because
another engineer, Ulrich Finsterwalder, intervened, but, in reality,
this building arose out of my work; that is, it all started with the
Raleigh Arena, although the Karlsruhe auditorium was built
20
beforehand: the imitation came before the original product,

a rather strange situation.7
That’s when I met Fritz Leonhardt. At the time, after having
just recently finished my doctoral thesis, I collaborated with
Stromeyer, a tent construction company, on the entrance arch for
the Federal Garden Exposition of Cologne (1957). Since then we
have collaborated on different projects.
Afterwards the projects for Saudi Arabia arrived. The English
engineers were better prepared, because Saudi Arabia had
a historic relationship with England. Since Leonhardt didn’t
consider himself an ideal candidate to work in that country, we
carried out these works in collaboration with the English. The
relationships with Ove Arup and Ted Happold arose out of that
collaboration.
What relationship did you have with the most important

engineers of the twentieth century?
Eduardo Torroja: I had an epistolary relationship with him. He

had studied my work a lot and invited me to a seminar that was
held in Paris, which he couldn’t attend because he passed away
beforehand, so I never met him personally. Of course I know
his famous book Philosophy of Structures in its German version
(Logik der Form). 8
With respect to the International Association for Shell
and Spatial Structures (IASS) that Torroja founded, I had a
relationship with the association but never belonged to it because
I was mainly concerned with membranes and this association
was concerned with the study of shells; only later did it also focus
on membranes. It was said back then that membranes were also
shells; I didn’t agree, as they are two very different things: shells
are shells, and membranes are membranes.
Eugène Freyssinet: I didn’t know him personally, either. There

was an epistolary exchange, especially between Leonhardt and
Freyssinet, and of course I have studied his work.
Bernard Laffaille: I had a very intense epistolary exchange with

him, and I alluded to his first works in my doctoral thesis. Laffaille
had already built his first metal sheets and his hanging roofs
before he had that terrible reverse with the great shell structure
of the Radio Europe No. 1 broadcasting station in Luxembourg,
which ruined him. I think that he never mentally or emotionally
recovered from this mishap. One of his children now writes
me, because there are still people from his life that keep our
relationship alive, but it wasn’t as intense as one would think.
Robert le Ricolais: I met him in Philadelphia, with Louis I. Kahn,

when I was teaching in the United States. 9 I knew his work and
I think that we have mutually benefited from each other to a
certain extent, but that’s it.
Félix Candela: I met him in 1958, when I traveled to Mexico and

he showed me his work. Fourteen days before his death he
called and wanted to meet me in Paris for the exhibition L’Art de
l’Ingénieur.10 Neither one of us saw the exhibit. He had fractured
22
the neck of his femur and was in a bad state of health when he
called me. But I used to see him frequently, as he came to visit
me at the institute and at the studio many times.11 He had some
difficulties, because he didn’t get any jobs and couldn’t go back
to his profession. I tried to help him, but it wasn’t possible for
me, as I didn’t have any work either. Once I met him in Madrid—
Candela was born in Spain and had to go into exile due to the
Spanish civil war—and on a long trip he showed me the places
linked to his childhood, to the city where he had been raised.
Pier Luigi Nervi: I didn’t know him personally, although I knew

his work. Many times I was, let’s say, his competitor, especially in
the bid for the Kuwait Sports City, in which Pier Luigi Nervi, Félix
Otto (on the far left) with Félix Candela (on the far right)
Candela, and the team made up of Kenzo Tange and me were

invited to participate. We were working from Tokyo and ended up
winning the bid. That was the only time I competed with Nervi so
directly. I hold him in very high regard, but when you are invited
to bid on a project like this and you are young, you try to outdo
even an authority like him. Without a doubt, Nervi’s buildings are
masterworks.
Richard Buckminster Fuller: I knew his work and we saw each

other for the first time in 1958, in St. Louis, when I was teaching
at Washington University (later we met again at Southern Illinois
University Carbondale). We had a long conversation, which at
times became a heated but friendly discussion on wide-span
Otto (left) with Richard Buckminster Fuller

24
constructions, especially wide-span grid shells. Later he traveled

frequently to Germany and came to visit me at the institute and
we spoke about biology, especially ordinary biology and about the
professor Johann-Gerhard Helmcke of the Technical University of
Berlin. When he saw Helmcke’s works, especially the radiolarian
and diatomic stereomicroscopic images, he stood up and wanted
to grab them! It was very funny. He was amazed when he saw how
animate nature was faster at inventing than he was.
Eladio Dieste: Unfortunately, I didn’t meet him personally,

although once a joint talk was planned at the Accademia
di Architettura in Mendrisio, Switzerland, coinciding with a joint
publication on our work.12 However, the occasion didn’t arise.
His work is magnificent, and I would have loved to meet him.
Although his work was introduced very late in Europe, a former
student of mine, Rainer Barthel, currently a professor at the
Technical University in Munich, knew his work very well and
disseminated it in Germany.
You have had a close relationship with Heinz Isler, isn’t

that right?
I have had a long relationship with Isler. He collected many

of my developments and trials with models, but applied them
specifically to building with reinforced concrete shell structures.
He has also been very active in the Structural Morphology
Group of the IASS.
Have you had any type of relationship with this group?

What do you think of its activities?
Fritz Leonhardt, Jörg Schlaich, and Heinz Isler had very active
roles in this group. I would also have liked to participate if
they had invited me, although, on the other hand, I am happy
it didn’t happen as these types of activities require a lot of
work. Nevertheless, I have participated in debates with these
colleagues, and I cannot judge to what extent they have been
able to benefit the IASS work. In any event, the IASS has been
an important organization and perhaps it was due to lethargy
or idleness that I haven’t been more active. I already had enough
work from setting up my own institute.
Perhaps we could now address the link between your work

and the rationalizing approaches of German architecture
from the 1920s. Your father was a member of the Deutsche
Werkbund, and names such as Walter Gropius and Erich
Mendelsohn were discussed in his studio.
Yes, he had a very active role in the Deutsche Werkbund and

personally knew Erich Mendelsohn, although I’m not sure if he
ever met Walter Gropius.
Did you meet Walter Gropius?
I met Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright,
Erich Mendelsohn, and Fred Severud (this last person thanks
26
to Eero Saarinen) during a long study trip to the United States

between 1950 and 1951. I continued developing relationships
with some of them until their deaths, especially Walter
Gropius and Mies van der Rohe—very important and beautiful
relationships for me.
What were the importance and influence of these

relationships based on?
On the clarity of the ideas of the modern movement. For more

than a decade I was president of the Weissenhofsiedlung Society
of Stuttgart and I also participated in the internal discussions
of the Deutsche Werkbund and of the Congrès International
d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) after returning from the prisoner
of war camp.
During these discussions, for example, Wassili and Hans
Luckhardt, two pioneers of modern architecture, informed me in
detail about the fights and arguments arising in Germany about
two opposing trends—one of them linked to the imaginary and
to the current green movement. The roots of Wassili and Hans
Luckhardt, Hans Poelzig, and Erich Mendelsohn went beyond the
limits of the classical modern movement; this has interested me
a lot: why and how at the end of the 1920s one of the two trends
continued to exist while this fantasy architecture, which I have
called “proto-green,” suffered a set-back. It was something very
calculated and was mainly due to the strong influence of
Le Corbusier.
Later I had the opportunity to work in Berlin with the son

of Hans Poelzig, Peter Poelzig. I know about the architectonic
debate during the 1920s, both from my parents and from the
conversations I had after World War II with the survivors of this
generation.
There are perhaps two ideas in your work that we could

relate to German architecture from the 1920s. One of them
would be the experimental methodology of the Bauhaus—
of Josef Albers’s preliminary course, with his experiments
on paper, folds, curvatures—and the exploration of the
relationship between form and material.
I met Albers when he taught a seminar at Yale University during

my stay in the United States in 1960, but I was more interested
in Walter Gropius. Gropius came to visit me in Berlin when
Gropiusstadt was being built (at the time I was still living in
Berlin although I was already teaching in Stuttgart, so it must
have been between 1965 and 1966).13 During that visit he told me
that I was the only one who continued working in the line he
had established, mainly because I did not start from any formal
approaches but searched for the future architectural form
through experiments. I could almost say that Gropius was a
passionate enthusiast of my work (which was reciprocal) and he
was very well informed of what I did, something that I ignored,
perhaps seeing in this the only future path. All that really
impressed me.
28
So he considered you to be an authentic successor of the

Bauhaus methodology?
Yes, we could say a continuator of its fundamental principles.

Gropius didn’t want architecture based on form, but architecture
based on natural sciences. Mies van der Rohe was another world,
and, although we understood each other very well, he tended
more towards creation, elaboration, or construction of form; he
designed architectonic forms. Gropius didn’t search for form but
for the essential, the substantial. That is the difference between
these two greatly successful characters with very different paths.
I went to Mies van der Rohe’s studio in Chicago when they
were working on the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. He was
already very sick at the time, and his collaborators asked me for
my opinion, because it seemed that Mies had requested it. So I
made some observations about the museum project, because
I felt that some changes needed to be made. In order to support
the big roof slab, only four pillars had been put in the middle
point of the sides of the roof, so the overhanging corners tended
to suffer severe deformation. I proposed they put at least two
pillars on each side, that is, to support the roof on a total of eight
pillars, and that is how it was done. I met Mies van der Rohe
for the last time in Berlin a few weeks before his death, when
the roof was being assembled, and he was very happy with the
decision of the pillars. The two of us have followed our own
careers in complete harmony.
Mies van der Rohe didn’t get to see the Neue Nationalgalerie
finished, and on the day of the inauguration I saw Walter Gropius
for the last time, because he was at the ceremony. These are
small insignificant anecdotes, but interesting for the history of
architecture.
Did you meet Gropius during the long study trip to the
United States that you took between 1950 and 1951?
Well, not directly. We had written each other, as he had helped

me out with some letters of introduction to Richard Neutra
and Erich Mendelsohn when I was studying at the University of
Virginia; thanks to him I was able to meet all of these people. I met
him personally later, in Germany, although he had already seen
my work long beforehand. I was also in his studio in the United
States when I took that trip, but he wasn’t there at the time.
Do you think that having known the experimental

methodology of the Bauhaus influenced you?
The truth is that I knew little, as I hadn’t studied what the

Bauhaus had done, nor Johannes Itten and Maximilian Debus;
I learned all this much later. I must say that it didn’t really
influence me; I have followed my own path. Even the influence
of Antoni Gaudí came much later, when I had already done
investigations with models in the prisoner of war camp that
could be considered Gaudían, without even having known
Gaudí. One can follow this path simply based on logic, especially
when it comes to inverting structures that function by traction
so they function by compression. I learned this from an engineer
30
friend in the prisoner camp who was in my work group. The

possibility of developing vaults through catenary inversion
is something very simple that has been known from the time
of Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton. It was later when I studied
Gaudí’s work.
So I endeavored to learn how force diagrams are represented,
that is, graphic statics. When you focus on these things, you
realize that the same forms are independently present in graphic
statics whether they are structures that work by compression,
tension, or bending. The difference lies in the preceding sign.
So the fact that identical vaults of hung forms can be generated
through graphic statics is something that I already knew from my
time in the prisoner camp, specifically towards the end of 1945.
On occasion you have shared your experience in your

father’s workshop, when he soaked a cloth in plaster and
hung it, so that once dried it could be inverted.
Yes, it was simply part of a sculptor’s work. It was there when

I tried to build these inverted forms for the first time, and even
today I continue to play with this: a marvelous toy.
Your efforts to systematize also connect to the

rationalizing approaches of German architecture from
the 1920s: Walter Gropius produced a large number of
spatial combinations starting from modular elements
of large dimensions; Alexander Klein explored types of
housing starting from the possible variations of plans;
and Hermann Muthesius saw an expression of the

essential and even the immaterial in types. In your case,
your system sketches seem to take a step forward in these
rationalizing approaches.
Yes, I have tried to systematize for the purpose of placing a bit

of order in this almost infinite range of possibilities. It happened
when I began to teach in the Hochschule für Gestaltung in
Ulm, my first teaching experience. The first time I was asked to
teach a class was to replace Matthew Nowicki at the School of
Architecture at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, but I
couldn’t accept, as I was very busy here. Later I was invited to the
universities of St. Louis, Yale, Berkeley, and the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT), as well as Harvard. I believed that
it was necessary to introduce a certain systematization; without
it, how could one address teaching from such a vast field?
The teaching commitment demanded a certain order, but, at the
same time, I also had to address or take into account both the
issues of extension and concentration; I had to concentrate on
some places to be able to put forward real advances towards the
future, something that interests me more than making history. I
have always considered the attention to history the responsibility
of my specialist colleagues, and in the institute there has always
been at least one collaborator, assistant, or professor who has
seriously dealt with this issue, specifically Rainer Graefe, Eda
Schaur, and Berthold Burkhardt. I have also paid attention to it,
but it is not a field of work that I have felt as my own, because
I believe that it is not possible to create the future with history
32
alone. Of course, it’s important to learn history, but my job is to

work for the future.
Naturally, the role of your system sketches is very

important not only for classifying and organizing, but
also for inventing new possibilities.
Yes, because one discovers things that have not been studied
extensively yet, and then the gaps can be filled; I call this the
“systematic method of invention,” but it’s only a method. The
process through which one thing is combined with another can
be done very systematically, and I have developed an entire
series of inventions that have their origin in this combinatorial
analysis. But the truly important things did not arise from that
method, but largely from fortuitous or casual observations
made during experiments, some of which were planned in a
completely systematic style. I have always combined systematic
experimentation with the fortuitous or casual, where chance
plays a role; if something is accidentally discovered, it would
be stupid to reject it simply because it doesn’t fit within the
systematization. I am convinced that one can’t invent anything
by working only systematically.
Therefore it’s necessary to develop a capacity to perceive

and appreciate that which arises casually.
Yes, and to constantly observe. In the first place, to observe the

forms of inanimate nature and to see what happens, because
Experimental structures developed in the seminar on lightweight
structures led by Otto in 1958 at Washington University,
St. Louis, Missouri
34
Two-dimensional objects. Classification of forms according to Otto

forms of animate nature, which I have also studied, are much

more complex, almost impenetrable and opaque.
Now I would like to address the start of your experimental

methodology, the origins of your permanent principles:
the principles of lightweight construction, of anti-
funicular inversion, of form generation starting from
autonomous processes. Your experience as a glider pilot,
the construction of models, and your apprenticeship as a
stonemason appear as important initial experiences.
All of these things happened a long time ago, and I don’t believe
they are important, because each person follows a specific
individual path in life. Who would be interested in reliving it? It’s
possible for others to find it interesting, but I don’t think it is.
Perhaps the unstoppable drive for inventing and

combining is important.
Ever since I was a child it has been a pastime and an obsession;

I always had to be inventing something, and I built the strangest
inventions, which didn’t have anything to do with architecture.
One-, two-, and three-dimensional hollow bodies. Drawings by Otto.

36
When I was seven or eight years old, I invented inline skates,

which are so common today. It is something very logical, which
is in the air, but it’s silly to carry it out too soon, before the right
moment arrives. An invention always has to arise at the right time
and place and with the right people; if all these conditions aren’t
present, the invention fails.
In your experience as a pilot you also mention the

fuselage design for a one-person plane as a grid shell.
Yes, I arrived at grid shells through building fuselages of gliders

and not by constructing buildings. So I began to focus on grid
shells, and when I started to concentrate on the inversion of
forms, all of this seemed completely logical and automatic to me.
During your stay in the prisoner camp in Chartres,

France, important early experiences also took place, such
as the construction of some small vaults and your study
to optimize the arrangement of railroad tracks in order to
build a lattice bridge.
Back then I already knew about the possibilities of graphic

statics, so it wasn’t enough for me to just design a lattice
construction and calculate it afterwards. I thought that a form
could also be generated starting from statics, and beginning
from there I developed what I called a “natural lattice.” It was
much later when I found out that a German architect and
engineer, Georg Laves, had used the same method around
1820 or 1830; a bridge of his still stands in Hanover, which is

almost identical to the one I designed. Therefore, my study
didn’t deal with anything special but was rather a logical process
for reaching a form starting from statics, because my head
can’t wrap around the idea of drawing something and doing
the calculations afterwards. This always works; everything can
be calculated—today according to the theory of elasticity, and
back then through graphic statics, but in principle there is no
difference.
Despite having two different methods, the problem deals

with optimization.
Yes, it deals with form generation starting from a series of

physical and calculation processes, beginning with those that
generate forms already optimized from the start or that can be
optimized through small steps following a repetitive process.
I have been focusing more on those processes that contain an
optimization from the beginning, like soap bubbles, minimum
surfaces, and fluid forms, which, being very sensitive, can only
exist in very few forms. Based on those, we found a universe
of infinite possibilities. The membranes of soap bubbles have
infinite forms.
Nevertheless, the computer is currently an important tool

for form optimization and generation. To what extent
are all those physical experiments and tests with models
necessary?
38
The computer can only calculate what is already conceptually

inside of it; you can only find what you look for in computers.
Nevertheless, you can find what you haven’t searched for with
free experimentation. If, for example, you do experiments with
liquids, the infinite possibilities are restricted to only those forms
that can be built with the surface stresses of the liquids, that
is, those that tend to form minimum surfaces. If this process is
done with the computer and this criterion is eliminated, then you
obtain surfaces with different stresses, surfaces with bending
moments, shear stress, etc; you can do an infinite amount
of things. As an architect, or as an artist, I can demonstrate
that any sculpture can be built. I calculate the sculpture with
the computer and I adapt its dimensions, thicknesses, or
reinforcing steel bars in concrete according to the resulting
static calculation; that is, I don’t find forms, but I create forms.
The computer only acts as if it has found the forms. If we keep
in mind that an infinite amount of forms could be created this
way, the person sitting in front of the computer has really created
them and not just found them.
It’s a serious problem that the majority of those who work
only with computers today are incapable of seeing, because
to think of infinite possibilities is tremendously difficult. One
can think of everything, one can calculate everything using the
computer. It can be said that the computer has created this form,
but I think that’s a lie because the artist or the mathematician
who is behind the computer has created it by using calculation
methods to obtain something that he likes, that speaks to
his artistic sensibility. I reject the lie that says that the computer
Graphic representation of the minimum surface formed by soap film

and supported by a loop, obtained through computer calculation.
Elevation and plan.
40
has found everything, because new inventions can’t arise from

it; you only get what you have already placed inside it.
In fact, everything is created in our brain, a computer that is
much more efficient and can do better combinations, although
inexactly and imprecisely and frequently slowly, but it’s capable
of doing it. Those who only trust calculations done on the
computer are the foolish ones in our profession.
I must add that since 1965 all of my buildings have been
calculated with the computer. This is only natural and does not
need to be questioned, because it’s common practice today.
The relevancy of trials with models in the search for form

also relates to teaching objectives, as a didactic tool.
It actually deals with something very different, because the

transmission of knowledge to the student is very difficult,
but I still want to tell you something else. We are treading
in dangerous waters here; right now I am confronted with a
problem in a study I’m doing regarding the stability of high
buildings, specifically shells and vaults, which can suddenly
collapse. Are current computer programs good enough to
prevent the sudden collapses without prior warning? My answer
is no. This is something that makes me nervous, because not too
long ago in Paris—and previously in Moscow and even before that
three times in Germany—some shells that had been correctly
calculated with computers, had used all of the necessary
paraphernalia, and had been checked, suddenly collapsed.
The politicians always ask for those responsible, but they can’t
blame the engineers in these cases, because they used cor-

rectly designed programs according to the theory of elasticity.
We ask ourselves why the great master builders of medieval
vaults—and Antoni Gaudí as well—were able to build stable
structures without having all of the current methods of
calculating at their disposal, and why today these mistakes
are made even though we have this enormous computational
arsenal. The mistakes are made among professionals, students,
or imitators who make things without having really understood
them, and it seems as though the models of stability have not
been sufficiently studied in depth.
The question is how we should proceed given the fact that
we have always had two methods available to us. Therefore Fritz
Leonhardt and Ove Arup created their own laboratories and I
created my institute in Stuttgart. Leonhardt founded a second
institute of model statics in 1964, and I created and directed a
department for the construction of models in London for Ove
Arup. During those same years, specifically in 1965, calculations
by computers began to be applied. Arup had realized that it
wasn’t enough to trust the calculations because there could be
phenomena that could not be explained.
The most interesting phenomenon is the buckling of
superficial structures. At what moment does a piece of
paper buckle? [Frei Otto places a piece of paper vertically
on the table.] Pay attention to this phenomenon. The paper
doesn’t deteriorate; it’s kept intact. This type of buckling,
described by Euler, happens in an environment where we can’t
talk about stress, as there is no stress, only a bit of dead load
42
and nothing more. If you take a look at Euler’s formula,

you’ll see that he started from the basis that the deformation
can start with a circular figure, and therefore the famous π
appears. How is buckling generated? To tell you the truth,
from trials.
One of the most important methods was the ω method, a
coefficient by which the stresses increase when the form is
slender. All engineers have been using the coefficient ω for
decades; linear equations can be calculated with it, creating
a multiplier generated from very simple trials. Two of my
professors of structures—one of whom was responsible for
drafting the German building regulations in the 1930s—explained
to me in detail that coefficients had been found that could be
applied to multiply stresses in order to be able to use this elastic
stress model.
But why do the buildings fall if they haven’t received more
load than planned in either case? They collapse despite being
intact. In the case of tensions this isn’t important, as the
building is balanced until it returns to being stable; in the area of
compressions, when the building buckles, it suddenly collapses.
This sudden collapse is very dangerous and, although I lack
detailed information and only know what has been said in the
press and on television, the last two big accidents in France
and Moscow concerned glazed grid shells, with an undoubtedly
inadequate form. They weren’t shells without bending stresses;
if they exceed a certain deformation, they become unstable.
My question is: where are the computer calculations that can
prevent this phenomenon?
When we built the pavilion for the Federal Garden Exposition

in Mannheim (1975), in collaboration with the office of Arup
and Happold, we also did a static analysis with models, which
provided a greater approximation of reality. Although they are
simple, these structures can be adjusted and, above all, they
allow the danger that can arise to be detected. This is something
that many people do today.
Shells are often built too thinly; it is thought that in shell
structures one can obtain stability through the section and not
through stiffening on the surface. These are the problems we are
currently working on, and in my opinion, computational analysis
is not enough. Perhaps it will be in the future when adequate
methods are found, but so far I have not seen any that are good
enough.
What this means is that there is an open field for new
generations, but it would be absurd for them to think that they
can be pure theoretical physicists. Everything that we build
is applied physics and statics is a part of physics. In fact, the
dynamic in buildings today must be currently thought out with
more precision as every building becomes deformed with the
application of loads. What happens when buildings become
deformed and the instability that this deformation can produce
are rarely analyzed. In my opinion, this still requires a generation
of engineers who are more precise in calculating, on the one
hand, and on the other, verification in the physical reality.
The problem is that, once built, buildings are not checked,
because there is no possible verification. In a concrete building
the way in which the calculated stresses are distributed can’t be
44
verified, but in my membrane buildings they can. The stresses

can be measured in a membrane and in a cable, but not in brick
or concrete buildings. Variations in stress can be measured by
placing meters but not the stress itself. The problem consists in
establishing where the zero point is.
It is a delicate and important issue. To tell you the truth, all
stress analyses done so far have been imprecise. To say that
stress in buildings can be calculated is not true, because these
calculations are only approximate methods. Precisely calculating
the stress does not make much sense because precision beyond
10 percent can’t be obtained. It actually isn’t really necessary
anyway, because we don’t even know the loads. Who knows
what the loads of wind or snow are? The current generation of
Above and opposite: Interior of the pavilion for the Federal Garden
Exposition in Mannheim, Germany, 1975
youth does not concern itself with loads; it takes them from a
purely theoretical formula. I have not been successful either in
motivating my collaborators to really reflect and worry about
the loads of snow or wind on buildings or about the difficulty
involving trials with models in this respect.
Therefore, it’s not known what happens to buildings from
a physical point of view. So the question would consist of
learning more about this unknown reality, and for this we have
two methods available. On the one hand calculus; on the other
hand, verification in the buildings themselves or experimental
verification through models, as some results can already be
obtained in models, but not from the building itself. A suspension
bridge can’t be built and the stress in the cables measured
46
afterwards, without having done prior calculations, because if I

detect an error, it’s very expensive to fix it. In many constructions,
a subsequent supplemental reinforcement isn’t feasible,
especially if the construction has collapsed as happened
recently in Paris.
Some engineers question the transfer to reality of the

results obtained from trials with models. What is verified
as valid on a small scale doesn’t necessarily hold true on a
large scale.
Hanging model of the pavilion for the Federal Garden Exposition in

Mannheim, Germany, 1975
There are very simple physical rules and formulas. It is no

doubt necessary to know the laws of the models themselves if
they are used to measure stresses or forces. We build models
to know the form and, once obtained, we also build models to
know what happens inside. Without a doubt, the most interesting
models are those that generate forms optimized by the model’s
type of construction; herein lies the specificity of my work. The
first point is to build models that produce physical forms, to
demonstrate later, through another type of model, that these
forms can be built.
Geometric model
48
German Pavilion for the Universal Exposition in Montreal, Canada,

1967 (with Rolf Gutbrod)
If we take the example of the roofs for the Olympic

Stadium of Munich, an important leap of scale was
taken with respect to the previous experience of the
German Pavilion for the Universal Exposition in
Montreal (1967).
The Munich stadium is bigger, but the spans were more or less
the same, so the two buildings are very similar and are built with
very similar methods: with steel cables and minimum surfaces,
if as such we understand the smallest surfaces within a frame or
the biaxial surface stresses. In both cases they were very similar.
Olympic Stadium of Munich, Germany, 1967–72 (with Günter Behnisch)

50
The calculations for the Montreal building were done on

a computer using a very simple method. In the case of Munich,
the sports pavilion was more complicated. While we calculated
the pool in the same way as the Montreal project, we arrived at
the stadium design through a combination of calculations using
a computer and construction of models.
What more can you do to control a project than rely on these
two pillars? You can build models to generate the form and
later verify the stresses in the models and in reality. In the case
of Munich we measured the real stresses in each cable; it is
probably the first building where we really know what happens
inside. We also know the dangers that can arise from overloads
and what happens in the structure when we overload it.
I would like to return to the important question, which

engineers ask, about the leap from small to large scale,
especially in relation to models that generate forms.
It’s very simple. If, for example, you have a model of the same
form and material, and you apply loads in the same way, its
deformations are linear with respect to the real building. This
is the fundamental condition. The point is to only verify if the
model fulfills this condition. The models necessary to obtain this
condition are frequently very expensive. If concrete is concerned,
it is very difficult, because concrete can’t be reduced in size
so easily, and all of the model’s components must be reduced
in size. Reducing a grain of aggregate at a 1:100 scale is very
difficult, but it is possible. The question would be with what level
of precision the model can be built. Nevertheless, doesn’t even

a simple paper model like those that Eduardo Torroja made
show the dangers that can arise precisely through instability?
Naturally, yes. So in this case it’s not necessary to build such an
expensive model.
This is a question that can only be answered in each particular
case. The fundamental principles of experimentation with
models are known; therefore, the question of whether it can be
verified or not is not in doubt. Of course it can! And it should be.
Are the calculations safe enough to allow us to limit ourselves
to only calculating? On the one hand, we have experimental
physics, on the other hand, theoretical physics. No theoretical
physicist, despite the fact that he can reach new knowledge
through reflection and mathematics, dares to publish or reveal
the results of his work if he hasn’t verified them through trials.
Albert Einstein arrived at his famous formula of the theory
of relativity starting from the results of experiments; later he
performed calculations and afterwards the verification process
took place. It is not very professional, in fact it is simply frivolous,
to make new knowledge public without verification. In my opinion
some current computer programs used to calculate structures
don’t have a physical verification process, therefore buildings
can collapse and kill people today, transforming engineers into
killers (though it won’t reach this extreme, because no bad
intentions could be attributed to them, aside from stupidity).
Many engineers today are foolish for using computer programs
superficially, and for not being cautious enough.
52
The question is verifying the underlying theory in the

program.
Naturally, this is the job of the stress analyst supervising

the structural design process who must always use different
methods; some are simple methods, but others are not so
simple. In reality, at least one small trial with models must be
done, because on occasion very primitive trials with models
may force one to see something unfeasible. But often trials
aren’t carried out at all, because people believe that the amazing
computer program guarantees enough safety. This is wrongful
thinking.
It’s interesting to observe that the pioneers of engineering

of the twentieth century, such as Robert Maillart,
Eduardo Torroja, Eugène Freyssinet, and others, also
made these physical verifications, although each one in
his own style.
Yes, and they have each had a work collapse; now I remem-
ber a case of Freyssinet and Laffaille. Once one of my professors
drew the vital career of a good engineer for us in class; at the
beginning the line went up and later there was an inflection,
which coincided with some collapse. It’s an unspoken issue,
because otherwise the engineer would be judged and impris-
oned. On the other hand, without these trials there is no
knowledge, so risks have to be taken; the question is if the
homicide is from imprudence or from stupidity.
All of this belongs to the same tradition of the great

builders, engineers, and architects—pioneer masters
whose sense of the physical was always well developed.
Since the separation between engineers and architects took

place, it’s always been the architects who have been more
concerned with the qualitative vision and the meticulous study
of buildings and structures, while the engineers have focused
on calculations; both focuses are necessary. I place myself both
on the side of the engineers and on the side of the architects; for
me there is no separation. All possible separation is erroneous,
because experimental physics is as necessary as theoretical
physics; it’s not about separating but about integrating.
The problem of inventing structures is something very
different, as even today it is considered a mental job. One can’t
invent new structures by sitting in front of a computer, because
the computer shows only the infinite possibilities of what has
already been invented. In reality, it’s not necessary to invent
anything new, because the computer can already do it all.
Nevertheless, there is an infinite amount of possible inventions
that we must carry out, although it seems that we don’t need
to invent any more and that all the construction projects of the
world can be solved through the existing repertoire.
We have already talked about the validity of models

in the search for form, and now I’d like to return to
the systematization of forms and structures. Every
generation of architects has posed this problem, which
54
seems to be a permanent objective: to obtain a globalizing

systematization of the infinite variety of forms and
structures, in spite of being aware of the impossibility
of reaching a definitive systematization. Why set the
objective of obtaining a classification of an infinite variety
of forms?
I have by no means set this objective for myself. The infinite

can’t be completely placed in order. But for teaching purposes,
to orient students, one can start with simple things before
introducing them to the complex world of the infinite; this is the
reason for the order of structures, but it doesn’t constitute any
vital objective.
In your criteria of classifying forms and structures you

follow a globalizing approach that includes not only
artificial objects but also those from nature—your search
for common principles. Other systematizations of forms—
such as those of Paul Klee or Iakov Chernikhov—seem
more abstract, more geometric, perhaps more influenced
by the artistic vanguards of the first third of the twentieth
century, while your criteria reflect your search for a close
relationship between form and strength.
I think you’re referring to the possible influence of the formal

inventions of classical modern architecture or of painting on my
work. Naturally I know, among others, Piet Mondrian; I don’t know
whether he has influenced my work or not: both yes and no.
Yes, if you are referring to inventing additive structures, but no,

if you’re referring to experiments with physical processes.
The previous question was directed more towards the

origins of your criteria for systematization. For example,
I wonder if the categories “positive form,” “negative
form,” “cavities,” and “hollow bodies” proceed perhaps
from experiments with pneumatic structures; or if the
criteria “peaks and depressions,” “borders,” or “corners”
have their origin perhaps in your experience with
networks or tents.
No, they were merely logical considerations, and I don’t believe

any type of theory has been able to influence me there.
Let’s talk about the Mannheim pavilion, which in its time

achieved the greatest span in a grid shell. How do you
value this work in its scale, transcending the limits of
grid shell spans, as proof of the potential that this type of
structure has to bridge large spans? Once you mentioned
how this very flexible grid structure was transformed into
a very consistent grid shell.

I was really amazed at being able to build this work, a structure
that, on the other hand, supported a load test that we carried
out well. The building is still standing and soon it will turn
thirty years old, if I’m not mistaken. It’s the work I’ve been
the most afraid of; the most audacious work that really went
56
beyond my knowledge back then and perhaps even my current

knowledge.
I’m very grateful to Ove Arup and Ted Happold and their
studios for their collaboration. The structure was correctly
calculated, but we knew and had a feeling of the difficulties it
could have. I must be thankful that it has never had to support
excessive loads, which could have destroyed it. Originally, the
pavilion was supposed to remain only during the Federal Garden
Exposition. It was allowed to continue standing there but surely
one day it will be taken down. Nevertheless, the older it gets,
the more anxious I become. I don’t know what I should do:
Should I warn the owner that it would be better to tear it down
so that I can sleep better?
In the project for the governmental center (KOCOMMAS)

in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), you proposed a grid shell
with a hexagonal mesh on branched supports. Could these
supports be considered a step forward in the development
of a type of grid shell support that is more in line
with the principle of antifunicular inversion? Why a
hexagonal mesh and not a quadrilateral one, as in classic
grid shells?
Very simply said, because I wanted to try out this type of mesh.
For some physical reason?

Because it makes sense to find out what happens with a

hexagonal mesh. The majority of the grid shells occurring in
animate nature are hexagonal, although the quadrilateral ones
are easier to build. With this project, which was never built, I
learned to avoid hexagonal meshes: they are very dangerous and
expensive because the knots require extraordinary care. They
lack safe points, because no element crosses them continuously,
other than in the Mannheim pavilion. In hexagonal meshes, bars
bump into each other, loosing the continuity after the knot; in
triangular meshes, the bars can cross the knots continuously,
Model of the project for a governmental center (KOCOMMAS) in

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
58
Model of the project for

a governmental center
(KOCOMMAS) in Riyadh,
Saudi Arabia
60
but the meshes have different sizes, and a grid shell made of a
triangular mesh can’t be developed on a plane. Consequently,
quadrilateral meshes have the advantage of bars that cross the
knots continuously and permit simple construction. Hexagonal
meshes are more difficult; in a work that I’m developing now,
some engineers want to use triangular or hexagonal meshes
(triangular meshes are in reality camouflaged hexagonal
meshes) and are surprised that I don’t support them.
In Riyadh I wanted to use this type of mesh in order to study
how they functioned, and I had the best engineering office in the
world at my disposal. When one experiments, one should count
on the best collaborators. I haven’t even built my magnificent
branched supports yet; there are some in the Stuttgart airport,
but they aren’t mine. Nevertheless, they are very good imitations
of our project in Saudi Arabia, and it could be said that they
are proof that what I proposed is feasible; at least they are still
standing.
You have referred to some current issues regarding

your work with engineers. How do you see the role of the
architect and the engineer today?
As far as I can see, what I find odd today is that not being a
physicist or a natural scientist, I really have to consult on natural
sciences, on questions that have no longer anything to do with
current architecture, but that in fact have always had something
to do with historical architecture, from the middle ages up to
modern times. At the moment architects voluntarily don’t want to
have anything to do with natural sciences, but I think they make a

serious mistake because construction is applied natural science.
The architect doesn’t realize this fact and leaves this part to
the engineers; in my case, I have to ask the engineers to go back
to being authentic natural scientists, and they in turn frequently
leave this part to the computer programs. However, being an
authentic scientist requires the development and verification
of everything according to criteria inherent to natural sciences,
Stuttgart airport, passenger terminal, Gerkan, Marg und Partner, with

Klaus Staratzke and Jürgen Hillmer, 1991
62
which means at least double verification and therefore the

verification of that which has been calculated.
So contemporary building engineering has gone back to
being provincial and has really drifted away from centers of
thought; it’s very far from the scientific area of human thought,
while during another period it was at the top, when architects
were the vanguard physicists who built the highest buildings
and made the greatest experiments. Today both architects and
structural engineers have ceased being top-notch scientists.
This is my complaint, and I’m not alone; both the old Ove Arup
and Fritz Leonhardt thought similarly, as well as Stefan Polónyi.14
It’s a disgrace that the engineering profession has been
converted into something so frivolous, which limits itself to
the application of a few formulas; it’s not enough.
I also wanted to ask you about your current works

and projects, such as the project for the Stuttgart 21
Central Station.
In this station we have exactly the same problems that I just

referred to. We have been working on this project for more than
six years and still don’t know if it will be carried out. I’m already
counting on the fact that I will never see the station finished for
biological reasons, as I’m seventy-nine years old; the station has
an execution period of twelve years, and I don’t think it will take
less than twenty, because there are always delays. Even so,
I’m not giving up hope of being able to see it built.
How do you see the role of the institute that you founded
as a center of education in the field of lightweight
construction? Could it be said that the institute has
created a school of thought, which has educated an entire
generation of engineers and architects?
Influence would be a more adequate word, but only among a

small circle. The institute has generated knowledge, which was
published and which makes up a body of general knowledge,
although it’s not applied. The institute today doesn’t exist as it
did before, as it now works in other areas under the direction
of my successor, Werner Sobek, who is undoubtedly a leader in
his field. The work that I carried out at the institute doesn’t have
any continuity, although there are people from other institutes
throughout the world who still do similar work. I founded the
Institut für Leichte Flächentragwerke (IL: Institute for Lightweight
Structures) and I must say that, unfortunately, I also brought it
to an end. My successor hasn’t continued in the same direction,
because the university didn’t want to continue working in this
way. They thought that I had strayed too far, and they wanted
to go back to doing real things with their feet on the ground.
The question about my institute is a question pertaining to
history, not the present, given the fact that the areas in which
I used to work aren’t studied anymore. Today they don’t work
anymore on the development of lightweight surface structures
at the institute, although the term “lightweight construction”
continues to appear in the official name of the center. Now they
focus primarily on fillings and lattice webs or panels and energy
64
problems, glazing, etc.—issues that are also important, but

don’t have anything to do with lightweight surface structures.
You were the director of the institute until 1991.
Until March 31, 1991, to be exact. On April 1, I retired.
But books from the collection Mitteilungen

(Communications) are still being published.

The institute continues selling the old ones, and two more
have appeared since I left. The most recent one, Diatomeen 2,
is a beautiful book about diatoms, which are also grid
shells.15
My most important publication was included in the series
Form, Kraft, Masse (Form, force, mass) and appeared after
I retired.16 As emeritus professor of the institute I am still
Exterior of the IL, Stuttgart

Interior of the IL, Stuttgart
66
responsible for the publications. Now the institute has other

priorities, because the university and the faculty wanted it that
way, why not?
The book that you are referring to addresses principles

of lightweight construction, right?
Yes, it’s really a summary of my knowledge in the field of

lightweight construction. The book includes many of the
questions I have asked myself, questions about model equations,
for example, as well as the deduction of my simple formula on
the minimum consumption for the construction of houses.
The BIC.
Yes, the BIC deals with finding out about and evaluating the
mass consumption of different elements such as fibers, which
are the elements with the greatest load capacity, for the
purpose of investigating the lightest possible construction of
a house—a question already raised by my old friend Richard
Buckminster Fuller, who claimed that in order to know the
efficiency of a house it only had to be weighed. I said to him that
it was necessary to know at least its spans and volume. I found
the answer to the questions of volume and mass in the simple
formula that I have included in the book.
In the publications of the institute some of your

collaborators appear time and again, for example
Rainer Graefe, Berthold Burkhardt, Ewald Bubner,

Gernot Minke, and Rob Krier.
Graefe lives in Innsbruck. Berthold Burkhardt is professor and

vice-rector of the Technical University of Braunschweig. Ewald
Bubner was a professor in Essen and retired a little while ago.
Gernot Minke has not had much contact with the institute.
He addressed an issue that we had already addressed in the
institute and made it his own: the structures of earth, sand, clay,
etc. He used to be a professor in the Gesamthochschule Kassel
and has also already retired. Rob Krier worked in my Warmbronn
studio and also did the project for my house and studio, his first
constructed building. Now he lives in Berlin and for a long time
was a professor in Vienna.
In the case of Rob Krier, don’t you find the subsequent

transformation of his formal universe strange?
Many architects have been marked by their education. Their

professors told them, “You are an architect, so sit down and
design something; then build it.” While I tell them, “Let’s not
draw anything, let’s just look for the unknown.” Some, like Krier,
want to finally see their vision of an architect carried through, to
design something. Krier is a very emotional man. His conferences
are a show, an explosion of energy. I told him that a city couldn’t
be designed, that a city can only be left to develop by itself; he
felt very differently and claimed that a city should always be in a
position to be designed. A few years ago I congratulated him on
68
Kirchsteigfeld, the town he built near Potsdam Drewitz, outside

of Berlin. He had everything he needed in this project, and finally
he has seen his great wish of building a city come true, so for
him there is nothing bigger than building a city. It’s a question of
desires, and therefore he strayed from the path that I proposed
to him. I’m not so interested in designing houses as if I were a
sculptor but rather in finding out how they should be and how
they can generate themselves. This is the difference between us,
although I personally admire Krier very much.
Does the book you are currently preparing already

have a title?
It will be titled Das Netz der lebenden Wesen (Networks in live

beings) and perhaps it will appear in 2005, although it could
also be titled Das Netz der lebenden Natur (Networks in animate
nature).17 One of the chapters relates to Richard Buckminster
Fuller’s work, but the rest focuses on the work of the German
biologists Johann-Gerhard Helmcke and Ulrich Kull, of Stuttgart,
and of Adolf Seilacher of Tübingen, and on the SFB 230
investigation program, focused on natural structures, which lasted
more than fifteen years. Officially, the program was deemed
completed in 1995, but it actually finished when I retired in 1991.
In fact, the book has two parts, one referring to systems of
roads and infrastructures and the other referring to networks
that exist in animate nature. The book investigates the origin of
forms and how networks in animate nature developed—that is,
the beginnings of life, its evolution, its aspect, etc. It’s the most
difficult text I’ve ever written; it has little to do with classifications

and systematizations but rather presents the fundamental idea
that all forms of animate nature owe their existence to water-
filled fiber systems.
Could you tell me more about your upcoming

publications?
I’m working on another book about the issue of occupation and

connection.18 It deals with topographic and connection systems,
that is, systems of highways and railroad lines, but also systems
of force or of energy: force pathway networks and normal road
networks. To some extent, it’s a collection of issues concerning
unplanned settlements based on Eda Schaur’s doctoral thesis.19
It explores how road networks are developed from an energetic
point of view, road networks of man and animals, but also
other systems. Volumes 49 and 50 of the institute’s Konzepte
(concepts) collection are a preview of the manuscript and have
served as preliminary material for the book.
And what about the book titled Verzweigungen

(branching structures)? 20
Actually, one of my collaborators, Jürgen Hennicke, who still

works in the institute, should have written this book, but
unfortunately he hasn’t finished this work yet. And I haven’t had
the necessary energy to finish it, either, as I have been more
focused on biological subjects.
70
What can you tell me about your work on the principle

of pneumatic structures?
It deals with the concept of pneumatic structures, which has

been introduced to the institute thanks to the biologists. I have
actually substituted the concept of pneu for hydro, as pneu and
pneuma mean “air” in Greek, and I am actually talking about
elements filled with water in animate nature. What aspect and
strength do they have? How do their forms originate? The
most interesting result is that, without exception, all forms of
nature—from a microbe to a whale, to an elephant, or a redwood
tree—have a unique constructive principle, just one, with a
range of around forty billion variants. It also deals with a new
interpretation of the genetic principle, which not only researches
atoms but also the underlying concept of large molecular grids.
I continue to believe that the direct imitation of objects of ani-
mate nature for the construction of buildings is an erroneous
path. What we should do is study the objects of animate
nature and measure them with equivalent scales, because the
principles of form generation are very similar in some areas. For
example, in the field of pneumatic structures supported by air,
that is, the authentic pneus, the principles are similar to those of
animate nature, although not identical. It’s not very scientific to
take nature as a model; nature can’t be imitated because it’s very
complex. In principle it seems very simple but it is actually very
complicated and should not be interpreted mistakenly. People
say that I focus on biology only to create new architecture, but
that’s not true. I am just very curious to know what nature is.
Could you go into more detail about your trials and

constructions with models, and about their forms and
materials?
In regard to these issues there are no limits for me. Depending

on the type of problem posed one has to invent the methods of
experiment. In experiments one can use string, water, egg yolk,
or anything else; the important thing is to be able to extract
knowledge based on the results. The best trials with models
don’t cost much.
Could you give a concrete example of a model?
In recent years we have built four models, which relate to the

Stuttgart station. Here, in this workshop-studio in Warmbronn,
we have about three hundred models made with very different
construction methods; for each concrete problem we find a
new specific method.
I will only talk about a small part of what we have done, as a
lot has already been published. The most important thing of all is
to do the appropriate experiment. I used to do very complicated
experiments, as I didn’t dare, nor did I have the knowledge,
to extract results based on simple experiments. In order to
verify the stability of a shell from a simple paper model, a lot of
knowledge is needed, and the more knowledge you have, the
simpler the verification will be. The models have been useful for
me both as a way to create new things and to verify them.
Hanging model, stiffened and inverted, of the Stuttgart 21 Central
Station in Stuttgart, Germany
In the case of the models for the Stuttgart station, I realized

that my colleagues didn’t understand what a curve of constant
curvature was, therefore I had to make some models, among
them some made in parts, to show this characteristic. I had to
make my colleagues understand that introducing a concentrated
load on a surface structure can be resolved without large peaks
in stress arising, if the load is transmitted through a cable in the
form of a loop. I found this form in my experiments, I didn’t invent
it; it’s a curve of constant curvature. It starts from a flat surface
with a perfect circle; it’s something that is related to the circle,
a circle that revolves around a longitudinal axis. It’s a figure
that has absolute geometric precision. A model of this type
doesn’t have anything to do with the statics of models; it’s purely
geometric and didactic.
There is another case of a hexagonal mesh model, which
we didn’t make to be built in this exact form, but to show that
when parts converging on the knots form equal angles that are
less than 120º, the surface has uniform stresses, because only
then can a knot be formed. Naturally, I can build this form with
absolute precision using soap film. The form of soap film lasts
only a few seconds, before it disappears, so I can’t show it to
anyone. In this hexagonal mesh model the form is not so exact
but it is longer lasting; if I try to make something rigid or long
lasting, then I cease to be exact.
There are many other types of models, like those for verifying
stability, which are the most difficult to build. This model is built
so the supports can be removed piece by piece; if it’s truly a vault,
then it will remain standing, as though it were built with stones.
74
Model submitted in the bid for the Stuttgart 21 Central Station in

Stuttgart, Germany
76
Isaac Newton and Robert Hooke already proposed the

theory that the forces of a hanging form are the same as those
of an upright form, a theory that I have checked myself through
trials with models. When I was still a student, I built a model of
an inverted catenary in which I could vary the line of the arch,
although only to a certain limit. If this limit is exceeded, that is,
if the line of pressures exceeds this limit, then the arch imme-
diately collapses, which means that I need a specific thickness
in the arch. Another type of model is used to see how a body is
elastically deformed.
We started the Stuttgart project with the idea of a hang-
ing roof that would be extended over the excavated hole in the
ground. The pointed support with a loop appeared again, and
after many intermediate steps I built this other model, which
became rigid while it hung and was later inverted (see page 72).
A very important step had to be taken to obtain this. The rest of
the models that we made for the Stuttgart station performed
specific functions, like this one (see pages 74–75), which we
made to show the interior space, and to help the architect and
the promoter win the bid.
The biggest model shows the whole station in its exact
location seen from below. There is a rule: if something flexible
can be built in the model, then it can be photographed or mea-
sured directly. Therefore, photogrammetry or direct measuring
apparatuses can be used to calculate it afterwards, following
a repetitive process without the need to generate the form
using the computer, because it can basically be done by hand.
We developed the pattern of the roof of the German Pavilion in
Montreal by hand and later we did the calculations using a

computer, a novelty back then. The swimming pool pavilion and
the Olympic Stadium of Munich were also done by hand.
Let’s return to the explanation of the curves of constant cur-
vature. People know what a circle is, but there are also, among
other curves of constant curvature, the spiral and helicoidal lines.
We have tried to learn about these types of curves extensively.
Did you make the model only with a metallic strip with
the ends connected?
Yes, it is that simple. Of course, it has to be controlled and

reviewed. You can also make an unequal curve, but only the exact
curve of constant curvature provides infinite possibilities. You
can make a bigger or smaller circle by varying the radius just
as you can make the curves bigger or smaller. If you modify the
connection, then infinite possibilities arise. The discussion on
the concept of the infinite is extremely important. The majority of
architects don’t understand that there are infinite possibilities for
architecture in the future. There are no limits.
One of the most fascinating documents that I have got here
is a computer calculation of the formula of the minimum surface
made by my collaborators Bodo Rasch, Jürgen Bradatsch, and
Bernhard Gawenat. The calculations were also made with the
formulas of an old collaborator of mine, Eberhard Haug, the
first assistant in my studio who now works in France designing
bodies for automobiles. In these documents they represented
the minimum surface—that is, the same surface that we can
78
produce with soap film—with the computer program, with

different variants.
Did you arrive at these formulas through your

experiments with soap bubbles?
Yes, it was in 1961. It was very simple: we hang soap film, we let a
string fall, we break the film remaining inside the string, and then
a perfect circle is generated; afterwards, we take the string, we
try to pull it outside, and then this minimum surface is generated.
Now it can be calculated, but for more than forty years it was
impossible to calculate it. I have not waited for it to be calculated
in order to build it. The formula is really very complicated, and we
don’t even have it completely finished now, because the program
develops it according to a repetitive process. It’s fantastic to see
the precision used to arrive at this.
There is an important question here: whether one should

build a structure only if it can be calculated. For example,
the thin concrete shells used by Robert Maillart for
his bridges were forms that were impossible to exactly
calculate in his time.
Yes, and it has its advantages and disadvantages. Fortunately,

there have been engineers such as Fritz Leonhardt who have
shared this way of thinking, and we have built things that were
incalculable.
Eduardo Torroja also.

Yes, he too. I have said to some engineers that although

not everything can be calculated, we can do very precise
experiments with models, and knowing the formulas of the laws
inherent in the models, I can and have the right to verify bridges,
shells, and lattices with carefully built models. Fritz Leonhardt
built very complicated bridges with forms that had never been
built before. The only possibility he had in the 1950s was to build
models, taking a sheet of aluminum or glass and measuring
the deformations the loads produced. Later one can rely on the
critical stresses in concrete again, do trials, and build the bridge.
If the deformation under the dead weight is also verified and if it
is possible to check the cracking, then there is some safety and
it can be built. Today students think that they can’t build if they
don’t have an adequate computer program. They don’t realize
that often it’s safer to build with the old methods. This has been
a problem for the last three decades; I am from the old school.
In my opinion, forgetting about experiences and determining
factors can be very dangerous. People don’t think about why
some buildings have been standing for centuries and continue to
be stable, while nowadays a well-calculated structure suddenly
collapses. The majority of the collapses today concern grid
shells—the type of structures I have worked on—because people
don’t act carefully enough.
Here is a model that was built inverted.
Was it planned to be built of stone?
No, the model was meant only to show the form. But it could be
built with stone. All the elements of the Stuttgart station could be
80
built as if it were a stone vault. We built the model inverted, with

small wood blocks hung by string, and then this form appears;
once one knows the form, it’s easy to calculate.
The issue of the hexagonal mesh again.
It’s a hexagonal mesh because we wanted to build it like a closed

shell. In the field of simple compressions, if there is no bending,
the hexagon can be used. I can easily collect all of the forces
in a hexagonal mesh in concrete, but not so much in steel and
wood because steel bars are thin and long, and wood, although it
works better than steel, contains fibers. Nevertheless, concrete
is a surface structure, and to obtain a form that has the most
uniform stresses possible, one can use a ribbed shell or a
continuous shell. The verification can be done more easily with
the hexagon, because I can verify the uniformity of stresses and
easily transform a catenary network into a concrete shell. This
is one method to find the form of a concrete shell through the
construction of models.
The Stuttgart station could be built both as a concrete shell
and as a ribbed stone shell. This type of vault was built during
the gothic period, although without the hole, which wasn’t known
then. I studied the presence of holes in shells and the fact that
they don’t collapse, after the war.
Do you make any models with traditional materials?
Yes, everything here deals with the field of stability. You can
make models with a set of blocks. My father was a sculptor
Hanging and inverted hexagonal mesh model of the Stuttgart 21

Central Station in Stuttgart, Germany
82
and stonemason (like my grandfather) and was very interested

in medieval stonework, in finding out how vaults were built so
they wouldn’t collapse, as neither Hooke nor Newton had yet
existed then, nor current mathematics or computer programs;
nevertheless, people knew how to build. In my opinion, we have
all this knowledge today, but we don’t take advantage of it, so I
try to convey it.
I analyzed the Pantheon in Rome, because I wanted to find
out what horizontal action (earthquake) would make the
Pantheon collapse, and with the help of some very simple
models we obtained an approximate result: a third of the force of
gravity. Therefore, we can deduce that during the last eighteen
hundred years Rome has not experienced any earthquake with
a greater intensity than that. In the trial with models we can
destroy the object. We have verified the behavior of the Stuttgart
station in light of an earthquake and we know exactly at what
point it becomes unstable. Any construction becomes unstable
if an earthquake takes place; the question is to find out what
magnitude it must reach.
The safest construction is the pneumatic structure, as
earthquakes don’t destroy it. What everyone considers the most
unstable constructive form is in fact the most stable; the less
mass a form has, the more stable it will be.
The most stable construction is the one that doesn’t exist
or has already collapsed. I always said to my students that a
collapsed building is the most stable; the standing building has
a degree of instability. The question is to know what magnitude
exterior actions must have to make it collapse. In principle,
every building is unstable; all architecture tries to do is to

temporarily make stable what in principle is unstable.
Temporarily stable—during the life of the building?
Correct. While a building exists, it must be stable; it must be

temporarily stable. If it has collapsed, it’s already permanently
stable. When it’s lying on the ground, nothing else can happen,
but this type of idea has to be addressed by philosophy.
84
Notes
1. Fred Severud (1899–1990), civil engineer of Norwegian descent, founded
Severud Associates in New York. He was responsible for the structures of
Madison Square Garden in New York City and the Gateway Arch in St. Louis,
Missouri.
2. Ove Arup (1895–1988), a British civil engineer, was the founder of the studio
Ove Arup & Partners, responsible for the structures of buildings such as Jørn
Utzon’s Sydney Opera House, Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers’s Centre
Pompidou in Paris, and Norman Foster’s Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank in
Hong Kong.
3. Ted Happold (1930–1996), a British structural engineer who worked with
Fred Severud in New York, and later, in London, with Ove Arup. In 1976 he
founded the Buro Happold in Bath (England), which currently has many
offices throughout the world.
4. Fritz Leonhardt (1909–1999) was one of the most important German
engineers of the twentieth century. In 1953 he and Wolfhardt Andrä founded
the studio Leonhardt, Andrä und Partner (LAP). He is the author of the
Stuttgart television tower and, in collaboration with Paul Bonatz, of the
Mülheimer Bridge in Cologne, Germany.
5. Intercontinental Hotel and Conference Centre in Mecca (in collaboration with
Rolf Gutbrod), Saudi Arabia, 1969–74.
6. Frei Otto presented his doctoral thesis on hanging roofs in 1953. The thesis
was published a year later under the title Das hängende Dach (The hanging
roof) by the Bauwelt Verlag of Berlin.
7. Otto learned about the project of the Raleigh Arena, designed in 1950 by the
architect Matthew Nowicki in the studio of Fred Severud, during a study trip
to the United States. This building had one of the first hanging roofs formed
by a network of wide-span cables and, as the motivating factor behind his
systematic investigation of tensile structures, was an important experience in
Otto’s career.
8. Eduardo Torroja, Razón y ser de los tipos estructurales (Madrid: Consejo
Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Eduardo Torroja, 2000).
Translated by J. J. Polivka and Milos Polivka as Philosophy of Structures
(Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1958).
9. Between 1958 and 1962 Otto taught in different universities in the

United States, holding classes and seminars on lightweight structures that
explored new structural types through the construction of experimental
models.
10. There is a catalog of this exposition, which was held in the Centre
Pompidou in Paris in June of 1997: Antoine Picon, ed., L’art de l’ingénieur.
Constructeur, entrepreneur, inventeur (Paris: Editions du Centre Pompidou/
Editions du Moniteur, 1997).
11. Otto refers here to the Institut für leichte Flächentragwerke (Institute for
Lightweight Structures at Stuttgart University).
12. Luca Gazzaniga, ed., Eladio Dieste, Frei Otto: esperienze di architettura:
generaziono a confronto (Milan: Skira, Accademia di Mendrisio, 1998).
13. Gropiusstadt (1962–75) is a Berlin neighborhood, which was planned by
Walter Gropius.
14. Stefan Polónyi is a Hungarian engineer born in 1930 and established in
Germany since 1957. During the 1960s and 1970s he contributed to the
development of shell structures in reinforced concrete. Subsequently, he
designed structures such as the trade fair halls of Frankfurt, Hanover, and
Leipzig in collaboration with architects such as Oswald Mathias Ungers and
Von Gerkan, Marg und Partner.
15. Ulrich Kull and Klaus Bach, eds., Diatomeen 2, IL 38 (Stuttgart: Institut für
Leichte Flächentragwerke / Krämer, 2004). The institute had previously
published another book on the same issue: Klaus Bach and Berthold
Burkhardt, eds., Diatomeen: Schalen in Natur und Technik, IL 28 (Stuttgart:
Institut für Leichte Flächentragwerke / Krämer, 1984).
16. Frei Otto, Prinzip Leichtbau, IL 24: Form, Kraft, Masse 4 (Stuttgart: Institut
für Leichte Flächentragwerke / Krämer, 1998).
17. The book has not been published yet.
18. Frei Otto, Occupying and Connecting (Axel Menges: Stuttgart, London,
2009).
19. Eda Schaur, Ungeplante Siedlungen: charakteristische Merkmale,
Wegesystem, Flächenteilung, IL 39 (Stuttgart: Institut für leichte
Flächentragwerke / Krämer, 1992).
20. Preliminarily published as volume 46 in the institute’s Konzepte SFB 230
collection. Frei Otto, Verzweigungen (Stuttgart: Universität Stuttgart, 1995).
Frei Otto, Investigator
of the Processes of Form
Generation
Juan María Songel
88
The search for differences or fundamental contrasts between

the phenomena of organic and inorganic, of animate and
inanimate things, has occupied many men’s minds, while the
search for community of principles or essential similitudes
has been pursued by few. —D’Arcy W. Thompson1
If we search for Frei Otto’s name in the classic historiography

of architecture of the second half of the twentieth century, we
find that he inevitably appears linked to two works: the German
Pavilion for the Universal Exposition in Montreal (1967) and
the Olympic Stadium of Munich (1972). Both are frequently
discussed in the context of the architecture of the second half of
the twentieth century with the strongest technological approach,
and are consequently connected to the beginnings of the so-
called high tech era. His contribution to architecture, as reflected
in this historiography, is barely represented; there is no mention
of any of his other works, his thoughts, his methodology, his
research, or his vision of architecture. He appears as a character
buried in those two moments of the past.
Nevertheless, the German critic Winfried Nerdinger wrote in
the exhibition catalog published for the retrospective exposition
of Otto’s complete works held in Munich in 2005—coinciding
with his eightieth birthday—that the systematic research carried
out by Otto on lightweight and adaptable architecture, his early
interest in the environment and ecology, his orientation towards
the future, his social responsibility, and his extraordinary
personality made him one of the most important architects of the
second half of the twentieth century; no other German architect
Frei Otto, Investigator of the Processes of Form Generation 89
of his time had received as much international recognition as

he had. 2
At a time when interest runs high in the spectacular, the
original, the novel, the different, the unheard of, the subjective,
and the relative, Otto’s contribution can only be sufficiently
appreciated from the perspective of time, of long-term
developments, of the permanent, and of the substantial. What
has this architect contributed to architecture? What is his vision
and attitude towards it?
For Otto, architecture is an existential question, something
that exceeds the limits of its own field and involves the entire
existence of man in the cosmos. It is not an end in itself, but a
way to improve man’s living conditions, taking into account the
universe as a whole. For him the mission of architecture is not
about completing a work for a specific client, it’s not about the
design as an objective itself, nor is it only a means to provide
artistic expression or self-realization for the architect. Otto
sees architecture in the context of a globalizing vision that is in
harmony with, and not in opposition to, nature, with a backdrop of
an ideal economy in a cosmic sense, which assumes agreement
with the universe, and which makes Otto one of the precursors
of sustainability in the field of architecture.
It is an architecture that returns its attention to the origins,
to the necessary, to the basic principles of life and nature; an
architecture in which sensibility and common sense regain
their value, as it arises from a strong vital experience, of
having undergone extreme situations, which reveal the very
fundamentals of life—experiences such as those Otto had when
90
he was flying fighter planes during the last two years of World
War II, or as a prisoner of war between 1945 and 1947, or when
he lived in postwar Berlin, a devastated and demolished city.
Out of the precariousness of material means, with a very
limited amount of resources, arises the necessity to imagine
new solutions, to optimize performance, to obtain the maximum
with the minimum—a principle of economy that is present and
can be perceived in nature and in the universe. Matila C. Ghyka,
in his book Esthétique des proportions dans la nature et dans les
arts, formulated it as the principle of the smallest action for the
inorganic world and of the economy of substance for the organic
world. 3 We can also see the energy of this principle of economy
in the arts if we recover the conceptual richness of Mies van der
Rohe’s well-known aphorism proposing that we strive for more
with less and if we disconnect this statement from a style, trend,
or fashion and instead recognize it as characteristic of the works
of great formal and conceptual tension, not only of the twentieth
century, but of all times—the works that offer “the greatest effect
in the most concise means,” in the words of Mies himself.
This achieving a lot from a little, perceived as a basic principle
that pervades multiple areas of life and which connects us to the
current issue of sustainability, has been one of the permanent
objectives of Otto’s career. From his early work on, he considered
the principle of lightweight construction as a way of building with
a minimum consumption of material, energetic, and economic
means. This principle brought him to research and perform
innumerable measurements on all types of objects in nature and
technology to compare their structural efficiency, because he
was convinced that the optimal form of many types of structures

is still unknown and is very far from those commonly used.
From his perspective, the tents, the cable nets, the pneumatic
structures, and the different types of structures that he proposes
aren’t important or interesting in themselves, but rather to the
extent that they are means to reach his objective.
Otto has been critical of the Olympic Stadium of Munich. He
thinks it could have been much lighter. He didn’t want it to be a
symbol or a great building, but to be as minimal as possible. In
this respect, he considers the roof of the aviary at the Munich
Zoo (1980), in which he also participated, extremely important,
because the absolute minimum that was envisaged for this work
was finally achieved. The roof lies in the landscape like a veil, an
example of how Otto envisioned the roof of the Olympic Stadium.
For Otto, who had been experimenting and developing tents
as a new structural type, the first real effort of technological
and artistic manipulation of tents was realized in the Olympic
Stadium of Munich, because the question here was how to
make constructible a form previously conceived or designed
by the winning team of the bid, Behnisch & Partner. According
to Otto, this building reflects the tension between the will to
emphasize the project, or the formalization, and the search for
the still unknown form, governed by the laws of nature. In his
point of view, the tents cannot be modeled or designed but only
developed through scientific methods, which involve physical
processes of form generation.
This consideration of form as the result of a search process
offers a point of connection with the great old objectives of the
92
architectonic vanguard of the 1920s. It is no coincidence that

Walter Gropius himself considered Otto to be a continuator of his
fundamental principles, an authentic successor of the philosophy
and methodology that inspired the founding of the Bauhaus,
because Otto does not start from any previous formal approach
nor considers the form a priori, but views it as the consequence
of a search process. The experience of making sculptures, which
Otto gained through his father, must have contributed decisively
to his vision of form: “The figure isn’t modeled according to a
predetermined or desired form, the figure is extracted from the
unknown.”
Otto, unlike any other architect of the twentieth century,
has been committed to investigating the processes of form
generation in nature, technology, and architecture, searching
for common principles, exploring all types of materials and
physical processes. His experiments with soap film and
bubbles, foam, granules, viscous fluid membranes, branching
structures, hanging nets, and folds concern some of the
natural processes of self-generation of form on which he has
focused his attention for the purpose of observing forms that
generate and disentangle their own logic. Evident in all this is a
marvelous capacity to discover the unknown and the unheard
of in the everyday, the extraordinary in the ordinary, to pose new
questions and to open new ways based on the most common
natural phenomena.
Thanks to the knowledge he gained through research,
he arrived at a new form of natural, adaptable, and flexible
lightweight construction. The minimum surfaces, which were
generated by Otto’s experiments with soap film, can’t be

disconnected from pneumatic structures, textile membranes,
or cable nets. His experiments with hanging models to
generate anti-funicular forms involve the development of many
possibilities implicit in the explorations of Antoni Gaudí, and
would culminate in the development by Otto of new types of
lightweight structures such as grid shells, which have become
so frequent nowadays. One of his most brilliant and successful
examples can be found in the pavilion for the Federal Garden
Exposition in Mannheim, Germany, in 1975.
First in Otto’s workshop in Berlin and afterwards in the
institute that he founded at Stuttgart University in 1964, the
Institute of Lightweight Structures, he made sure that all trials
and experiments were meticulously measured, photographed,
and analyzed, and that each variation, each combination,
was registered and classified following a methodology and
systematization that reminds us of the procedures established
by naturalists, zoologists, or botanists. In fact, both in his teams
of collaborators and in his research projects, Otto managed
to bring together and excite a select group of highly qualified
specialists from such disparate fields as biology, engineering,
paleontology, philosophy, physics, geodesy, and history, which,
due to the wide spectrum of disciplines, became one of the most
important interdisciplinary research groups of his time.
We find here a free, vital attitude, capable of eluding the
prejudice of the autonomy of the architectural discipline; a
desire to know and develop creativity, establishing relationships
between different fields of knowledge, between the arts and
94
sciences; and an undeniable capacity for leadership, to organize

and open new paths of research, stimulating and motivating
collaborators based on a global and integrative vision of nature
and technology. Otto’s is a career that connects with the initial
rationalizing approaches and the search for the essential of
modern architecture of the 1920s—before it moved toward a
new “international style”— and includes new elements lacking
tradition in modern architecture, such as self-generated forms.
It is a long and consistent career with its own relevance and
coherence: difficult to classify and independent of fashion,
aesthetic trends, and the ups and downs of the mass media and
critics throughout the second half of the twentieth century. It
is a contribution that is inserted in that dense cultural deposit
of content that has formed over time, a contribution in which
the fundamental questions of man, his life, and environment
have never ceased to be present, generating from authenticity,
necessity, discretion, and social responsibility timeless forms of
great evidence and constructive expression.
Notes
1. D’Arcy W. Thompson, On Growth and Form (1917; repr. New York: Dover,
1992).
2. Winfried Nerdinger, ed., Frei Otto: Complete Works (Basel: Birkhäuser,
2005). Published in conjunction with the homonym exposition held in the
Architekturmuseum (architecture museum) of the Technical University of
Munich from May to August, 2005.
3. Matila C. Ghyka, Esthétique des proportions dans la nature et dans les arts
(Paris: Gallimard, 1927).
96
Illustration Credits
Pages 15, 37, 47, 49, 61, 63, 64, 72, 81:
© Juan María Songel
Pages 22, 23, 33, 34, 35, 44, 45, 46:

© Institut für Leichtbau Entwerfen und
Konstruieren (ILEK)
Pages 48, 56, 58–59, 74–75:

© Atelier Frei Otto Warmbronn

A Conversation With Frei Otto PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

A Conversation With Frei Otto PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

A Conversation with

Other titles in this series

Mies van der Rohe

Princeton Architectural Press | New York

7 The Fundamentals of Future Architecture

17 A Conversation with Frei Otto

87 Frei Otto, Investigator of the Processes of

The Architect Today

in a position to respond to current demands and transcend the

damaged; he is reduced to being an uncreative imitator of

The New Structural Engineer

depends both on the aptitude of the professor and that of his

The Works of Engineering

architects. We have too much work. We have no other choice

Otto in his studio, Warmbronn, Stuttgart, Germany, 2004

A conversation between Frei Otto and Juan María Songel, held

Out of the rich and wide variety of aspects and

From 1952 to 1953 I had a close relationship with the German

Which work or what occasion gave rise to the start of

It is a very strange story. I had studied in Berlin, and when I

beforehand: the imitation came before the original product,

What relationship did you have with the most important

Eduardo Torroja: I had an epistolary relationship with him. He

Eugène Freyssinet: I didn’t know him personally, either. There

Bernard Laffaille: I had a very intense epistolary exchange with

Robert le Ricolais: I met him in Philadelphia, with Louis I. Kahn,

Félix Candela: I met him in 1958, when I traveled to Mexico and

Pier Luigi Nervi: I didn’t know him personally, although I knew

Candela, and the team made up of Kenzo Tange and me were

Richard Buckminster Fuller: I knew his work and we saw each

Otto (left) with Richard Buckminster Fuller

constructions, especially wide-span grid shells. Later he traveled

Eladio Dieste: Unfortunately, I didn’t meet him personally,

You have had a close relationship with Heinz Isler, isn’t

I have had a long relationship with Isler. He collected many

Have you had any type of relationship with this group?

Perhaps we could now address the link between your work

Yes, he had a very active role in the Deutsche Werkbund and

Did you meet Walter Gropius?

to Eero Saarinen) during a long study trip to the United States

What were the importance and influence of these

On the clarity of the ideas of the modern movement. For more

Later I had the opportunity to work in Berlin with the son

There are perhaps two ideas in your work that we could

I met Albers when he taught a seminar at Yale University during

So he considered you to be an authentic successor of the

Yes, we could say a continuator of its fundamental principles.

Well, not directly. We had written each other, as he had helped

Do you think that having known the experimental

The truth is that I knew little, as I hadn’t studied what the

friend in the prisoner camp who was in my work group. The

On occasion you have shared your experience in your

Yes, it was simply part of a sculptor’s work. It was there when

Your efforts to systematize also connect to the

and Hermann Muthesius saw an expression of the

Yes, I have tried to systematize for the purpose of placing a bit

alone. Of course, it’s important to learn history, but my job is to

Naturally, the role of your system sketches is very

Therefore it’s necessary to develop a capacity to perceive

Yes, and to constantly observe. In the first place, to observe the

Two-dimensional objects. Classification of forms according to Otto

forms of animate nature, which I have also studied, are much

Now I would like to address the start of your experimental