Pritzker Prize for Frei Otto, German Architect, Is Announced After His Death
By ROBIN POGREBIN
March 13, 2015
In an announcement abruptly moved up after his death, the German architect Frei Otto on Tuesday was named the winner of the Pritzker Prize in recognition of his airy tentlike structures and other inventive feats of engineering.
Mr. Otto, 89, died in Germany on Monday, two weeks before he was to be named this year’s laureate, the prize jury said. He is perhaps best known for roof canopies designed for the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, admired for their blend of lightness and strength.
“He has embraced a definition of architect to include researcher, inventor, form-finder, engineer, builder, teacher, collaborator, environmentalist, humanist, and creator of memorable buildings and spaces,” the jury said in its citation.
The Pritzker is regarded as architecture’s highest honor and usually goes to a living architect. The committee said it was the first time that a winner had died before the announcement was made.
The roof of the West German Pavilion at the World Expo in Montreal in 1967, designed by Mr. Otto and Rolf Gutbrod.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Mr. Otto learned of his selection early this year when Martha Thorne, the prize’s executive director, flew to Stuttgart to inform him of the jury’s choice. He was blind but otherwise in good health, the panel said. Mr. Otto was honored and surprised, according to Edward Lifson, a spokesman for the prize.
“I’ve never done anything to gain this prize,” Mr. Otto was quoted as saying. “Prizewinning is not the goal of my life. I try to help poor people, but what shall I say here — I’m very happy.”
Mr. Otto may not have been a household name, but he was widely esteemed in the profession. Prominent architects had quietly pushed for him to receive the award for years.
“Time waits for no man,” said Peter Palumbo, the Pritzker chairman, in a statement, calling Mr. Otto’s death “a sad and striking example of this truism.”
The announcement was originally to be made on March 23. The architect Frank Gehry was to award Mr. Otto the prize at a ceremony on May 15 at the New World Center in Miami. That will proceed as scheduled, with past Pritzker laureates speaking there about Mr. Otto’s life and work.
Mr. Otto first became known for tent structures used as temporary pavilions at the Federal Garden Show in Germany and other events in the 1950s.
Mr. Otto's stadium roof canopies for the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich were widely admired for their lightness and strength.
View Pictures/UIG, via Getty Images
His large-scale roofs for the 1972 Olympics stadium in Munich, designed with Günter Behnisch, defied expectations, though the games were vastly overshadowed by the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes there by Palestinian terrorists.
Mr. Otto often designed in collaboration with others, collaborating with Shigeru Ban on Japan’s pavilion for the 2000 Hannover Expo in Germany and with Rolf Gutbrod on the West German pavilion at the Montreal Expo of 1967.
Born in Siegmar, outside Chemnitz in eastern Germany, Mr. Otto grew up in Berlin. He designed glider planes as a hobby, fascinated by the structural forces at work when thin membranes are stretched over light frames.
During service as a pilot in the Luftwaffe during World War II, he was captured near Nuremberg, Germany, and spent two years as a prisoner of war near Chartres in France, where he worked as a camp architect, learning to build various structures with the minimal materials available.
After the war Mr. Otto returned to study architecture at the Technical University of Berlin, where he earned a doctorate in civil engineering in 1954.
In a clear reaction to the heavy columned buildings commissioned under the Third Reich, Mr. Otto’s work was lightweight, democratic, low-cost and sometimes temporary.
After a trip through the United States, where he viewed the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Eero Saarinen, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and others, Mr. Otto became a freelance architect in 1952, opening an office in Berlin. He went on to found several institutions dedicated to lightweight structures.
He was inspired by “natural phenomena — from birds’ skulls to soap bubbles and spiders’ webs,” the British architect Richard Rogers, a member of the Pritzker jury and a past laureate, said in a statement prepared before Mr. Otto’s death.
Mr. Otto’s work has been widely recognized. In 2006, for example, he won the 18th annual Praemium Imperiale prize for architecture, awarded by the Japan Art Association; in 2005 he received the Royal Gold Medal for architecture from the Royal Institute of British Architects.
“Frei Otto is one of the great architects and engineers of the 20th century,” Mr. Rogers said. “His work has inspired and influenced modern architecture, as we all learn to do more with less, and to trade monumental structures for economy, light and air.”
德國建築師弗雷·奧托去世後獲普利茲克獎
建築2015年03月13日
剛剛去世的建築師弗雷·奧托將獲得今年的普利茲克獎。
Technische Universität München
周二，德國建築師弗雷·奧托(Frei Otto)因其輕盈通透的帳篷式建築結構，以及其他獨樹一幟的工程作品被授予普利茲克獎，這項決定是在他去世後迅速公布的。
奧托於周一在德國去世，享年89歲，普利茲克獎項評審團稱，他本應於兩周後獲得該獎。他最著名的作品是為1972年慕尼黑奧運會設計的頂棚，它們既輕盈又有力，因此備受讚譽。
「他相信，建築師應當是研究者、發明者、形式的發現者、工程師、建造者、教師、合作者、環保主義者、人文主義者，乃至令人難忘的建築與空間的創造者，」評審團在評審詞中說道。
普利茲克獎是建築師的最高榮譽，通常授予尚在人世的建築師。評獎委員會說，獲獎名單尚未公布，獲獎者已經死去，這還是第一次。
1967年蒙特利爾世界博覽會上西德館的房頂，由奧托與羅爾夫·古特布羅德合作設計。
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
今年年初，奧托已知道自己獲獎的消息，該獎項的執行官瑪莎·索恩(Martha Thorne)坐飛機來到斯圖加特，把評委們的意見告訴他。委員會說，他雙目失明，但健康狀態良好。該獎項的發言人愛德華·里弗森(Edward Lifson)說，奧托得知獲獎消息，感到榮幸和驚喜。
他引述奧托的話說「我從來沒為這個獎而做過什麼，普利茲克獎並不是我的人生目標。我一直努力幫助窮人，但現在我該怎麼說呢——我很高興」。
奧托的名字或許並非家喻戶曉，但他在行業內廣受尊敬。多年來，許多著名建築師都默默支持他獲得該獎。
「時間不等人，」普利茲克獎主席彼得·帕蘭波(Peter Palumbo)在一項聲明中說，他說奧托的去世「是這一真理悲傷而顯著的例證」。
該獎項本應於3月23日公布。5月15日，將由建築師弗蘭克·蓋里(Frank Gehry)在邁阿密的新世界中心舉行的典禮上為奧托頒獎。頒獎禮仍將按計劃進行，屆時將有往任普利茲克獎獲得者進行關於奧托的生平與作品的講演。
奧托是在20世紀50年代最初為人們所知，當時他為德國的聯邦園林展等活動設計了帳篷結構的臨時建築。
奧托為1972年慕尼黑奧運會設計的頂棚既輕盈又有力，因此備受讚譽。
View Pictures/UIG, via Getty Images
1972年，他與甘特·班尼奇(Günter Behnisch)合作，為慕尼黑奧運會場館設計了挑戰傳統的大型頂棚，然而那年的奧運會被籠罩在11名以色列運動員遭到巴勒斯坦恐怖分子殺害的陰影之下。
奧托經常同其他人合作進行設計，他與坂茂(Shigeru Ban)合作，設計了2000年德國漢諾威世界博覽會上的日本館，與羅爾夫·古特布羅德(Rolf Gutbrod)合作設計了1967年蒙特利爾世界博覽會上的西德館。
奧托出生於德國東部開姆尼茨城外的西格馬爾，在柏林長大。他愛好設計滑翔機，迷戀結構的力量，喜歡纖細的薄膜在輕盈的結構支撐下伸展的樣子。
「二戰」期間，他在納粹空軍中擔任飛行員，在紐倫堡附近被俘，在法國沙特爾，他度過了兩年戰犯生涯，在戰俘營擔任建築師，學會了使用手頭極為簡單的材料建造不同的建築結構。
戰後，奧托回到柏林技術大學學習建築，1954年獲得土木工程博士學位。
奧托的作品輕巧、平民化、低成本，有時是臨時建築，這顯然是對第三帝國時期布滿重重圓柱的建築風格的一種反撥。
弗雷·奧托
Toshifumi Kitamura/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
去美國旅行時，他參觀了弗蘭克·羅伊德·懷特(Frank Lloyd Wright)、埃羅·沙里寧(Eero Saarinen)、路德維格·密斯·凡·德·羅(Ludwig Mies van der Rohe)等人的作品，1952年，奧托成了自由建築師，在柏林開了事務所。其後又開了若干致力於輕型建築的機構。
普利茲克獎評委、該獎曾經的得主——英國建築師理乍得·羅傑斯在一份寫於奧托生前的聲明中寫道，奧托的設計受到「從鳥兒的頭骨到肥皂泡和蜘蛛網等自然現象」的啟發。
奧托的設計廣受好評。比如，2006年，他曾獲得第18屆年度日本皇室世界文化獎，該獎項由日本文化協會頒發；2005年，他獲得英國建築皇家協會頒發的皇家建築金獎。
「弗雷·奧托是20世紀的偉大建築師與工程師，」羅傑斯說。「他的作品啟發並影響了現代建築，我們都多少從中受益，他的作品用經濟簡約和輕盈通透取代了紀念碑式的沉重。」
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