
Frei Otto (1925–2015)
The DESIGN of the future in the grip of the human vortex. All the past that is vital, all the past that is capable of living into the future, is pregnant in the vortex, NOW.
—Ezra Pound, “Vortex,” BLAST, 1914
THE AWARD OF THE PRITZKER ARCHITECTURE PRIZE this year to Frei Otto was a welcome surprise, though his passing so soon after he learned the news felt a bit like a reproach. Time doesn’t wait for the Pritzker or the Nobel, it’s clear. Otto would have been ninety on May 31. The prize was awarded posthumously on May 15 in Miami. In 1996, Otto wrote that all architects could be divided into