Frei Otto Quotes

“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?”

“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.”

“My architecture is the architecture of survival.”

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

“There are things you do sometimes, actions that you take by obeying sudden impulses, without stopping for even a fraction of a second to think, and then you spend the rest of your life either lamenting it or thanking yourself for it. They are rare, unique, and perfect moments.”

“People are made in such a way that if something inexplicable happens to them, they write it off to an overheated imagination.”

“I've never really had any luck with women in my life. Well, at first I was fairly lucky. Then all of a sudden, they all thought they had to get married for some reason. And not to me. It's especially strange, because I almost always fell in love with the very smart girls. Even that didn't help matters. I don't see how any intelligent person could seriously want to get married.”

“Where do rumors come from, Sir Kofa?" i was truly curious to know the answer."Where don't they come from? I suppose the majority of rumors are a combination of leaked information and the astouding imaginations of numerous storytellers. And, of course, the hope that things aren't really as boring as they seem on the surface.”

“Come now and let us go and risk our lives unnecessarily. For if they have got any value at all it is this that they gave got none. Frei lebt wer sterben kann.”

“It must have really not liked me, but I can't imagine why, don't say anything Amelia."Amelia shrugged her shoulders, "It liked me the first time."Otto smirked, "Well I have no idea why.”