(b Siegmar, Saxony, 31 May 1925). German architect and writer. After serving in the air force in World War II, he studied at the Technische Universit?t in Berlin (Dip. Ing. 1952, Dr Ing. 1954) and opened an architecture studio at Zehlendorf, Berlin, in 1952, working in collaboration with others from 1958. Parallel with his design work, he conducted research into lightweight structures and technology at the Development Centre for Lightweight Construction, Berlin, which he established in 1957, and at the Institute for Lightweight Structures that he founded in 1964, attached to the University of Stuttgart. Otto was responsible for the revival and development of the tent as a structural form in modern architectural design, exploring a host of new and complex shapes using models at a time when the analysis of such structures was in its infancy. The small Bundesgarten pavilions, for example the riverside shelter and dance pavilion (1957) at Cologne and the small star pavilions (1963) at Hamburg, are among his most beautiful and convincing works. They consist of standard membrane elements composed additively in symmetrical arrangements, and they were made of cotton canvas with modest spans of 20 m to 30 m. After he began working with Rolf Gutbrod (b 1910) in the mid-1960s, Otto developed picturesque, asymmetrical roofscapes divided by low and high points, for example the pavilion of the Federal Republic of Germany (with Rolf Gutbrod) at Expo '67 in Montreal (see EXHIBITION ARCHITECTURE, fig. 2). This structure was also Otto's first large-scale cable-net roof, initially seen in a transitional type combining membrane and cable-net in the restaurant pavilions at the Exposition Nationale Suisse (1964) at Lausanne. The roofs of the main sports arena in the Olympiapark (1967-72; with G?nter Behnisch), Munich, realized a new scale in this type of development and led to the pioneering of purely mathematical, computer-based procedures for determining the shape (for illustration see TENSION STRUCTURE). Otto also developed the convertible roof type, in which variable geometry permitted the roof canopy to be extended or retracted at will; an example is the roof for the open-air theatre (1967-8), Bad Hersfeld, Hessen. In 1968 his studio moved to Warmbronn, and after 1972 he concentrated on the analysis of biological phenomena to develop his understanding of lightweight structures in nature. He continued to produce adventurous projects such as the mobile umbrella roofs (1971), Cologne; roofs for a conference centre in Mecca (1974; with Rolf Gutbrod and Ove Arup); a timber-grid shell multipurpose hall and restaurant (1975), Mannheim; a sports complex (1975-8; with Rolf Gutbrod), King Abdul Aziz University, Jiddah; and a diplomatic club (1980-85), Riyadh. The Middle Eastern projects embodied a sense of continuity between the new buildings and traditional nomad tent shelters. Otto ranks alongside such great structural innovators as F?lix Candela, R. Buckminster Fuller and Pier Luigi Nervi; he brought the tent into line with 20th-century advances in materials and technology, yet he produced works of outstanding sculptural beauty.
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