Social Manny: Episode 176

Pritzker Architecture Prize Honors 2015 Laureate Frei Otto with Award Ceremony and Installation at New World Center

Elle Macpherson and Jeff Soffer

The Pritzker Architecture Prize honored architect Frei Otto with a black tie dinner and award ceremony at the New World Center in Miami Beach. The evening celebrated the life and career of the late Otto, the 40th Laureate of the Prize and the second laureate from Germany.

Hosts Cindy Pritzker and Tom & Margot Pritzker were joined by Pritzker Architecture Prize Jurors Lord Peter Palumbo, Alejandro Aravena, Justice Stephen Breyer, Kristin Feireiss, Yung Ho Chang, Benedetta Tagliabue, Ratan Tata as well as Glenn Murcutt (2002 Laureate) and Richard Rogers (2007 Laureate); Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureates Shigeru Ban (2014), Lord Norman Foster (1999), Zaha Hadid (2004), Thom Mayne (2005), Jean Nouvel (2008) as well as jurors Richard Rogers (2007) and Glenn Murcutt (2002), among other guests.

Upon arrival, guests entered a four-point tensile tent first designed by Otto as a music pavilion for the 1955 Federal Garden Exhibition in Kassel, Germany, constructed for the occasion. An example of his pioneering message of technology for the sake of society, the design and materials of the tent embodied the simple elegance and prescience of his life work. Otto created a new paradigm of sustainable architecture, initiating a worldwide industry of energy-saving fabric structures. 2014 Pritzker Laureate Shigeru Ban, a close friend and longtime collaborator of Otto, has implemented Otto’s design with the support of Birdair (TAIYO), the leading contractor of custom tensile membrane structures in the world.

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