Frei Otto quotes

Frei Otto was a German architect and structural engineer, renowned for his innovative work with lightweight and tensile structures. His designs, such as the Munich Olympic Stadium roof, influenced the development of modern architecture and engineering. He inspired generations of architects by emphasizing sustainability, efficiency, and organic forms. Here are 10 of his quotes:

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

Frei Otto

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

Frei Otto

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

Frei Otto

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

Frei Otto

I have built little. But, I have built many castles in the air.

Frei Otto

To build means to make architecture real on the borders of knowledge.

Frei Otto

Buildings are 'humane' only when they promote peaceful human co-existence.

Frei Otto

I have only one dream. It is the oldest of humanity, of man, in time. It is paradise. I would like to give paradise to everyone.

Frei Otto

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

Frei Otto