Frei Otto is one of the unique designers of the century. If you observe Frei’s designs, you will see a unique style of lightness, the use of fabric, and flexible materials—a form so unique, gorgeous yet light, and flexible. This unique design style of his was influenced by phenomena that took place in his life. Let’s learn more about his designs through his life story:

Frei’s design philosophy came from as early as his childhood. His father, who was a sculptor, had a workshop with a huge land full of all sorts of animals. His mother used to be a passionate nature lover. This was one of the reasons for Frei’s special attention to making his designs environmentally friendly.

Young Frei loved designing glider planes as a hobby. This was probably where his interest in thin membranes stretched over light frames developed. Later he joined the war and became a war prisoner in France. He used to work as a prison architect and learned to build tents with only a small amount of materials in the prison. This learning shaped his design philosophy later in life.

After the war, he attended Architecture school. This is where he found and improved his unique architectural style. The Hitler architecture was heavy-weight buildings with large columns.

In contrast with the architecture of that time in Germany, Frei’s designs were lightweight, open, and complemented nature. He pioneered the use of modern lightweight structures. Throughout his student life, Frei gained degrees in multiple subjects. After finishing his studies, he started his practice. Frei had worked in collaboration with many famous architects. He worked with teams that consisted of people of all expertise such as biologists, sociologists, engineers, and many more. This opened his mind to a broad range of ways to find form.

He made sure his designs were economical and had ecological values. He talked about sustainable structures long before sustainability became a mainstream concern. He had teams full of software experts,

but Otto always used models as his main tool. He made complex models to perfect his tensile-shaped built forms. He had kept writing books parallelly throughout his career and dedicated his life to lightweight design and research. Frei worked on many splendid structures and won the Pritzker Prize in 2015 for his lifetime dedication to modern-day architecture. He died on 9th March 2015.