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Featherweight
Hellabrun Zoo Aviary
Munich,Germany 1980
Jörg Gribi, Frei Otto, Buro Happold -
The gracefully draped steel net reaches a height of 18 metres at its tallest point (Photo: © Atelier Frei Otto, Warmbronn; aerial view: courtesy Hellabrun Zoo)
One of the buildings Otto was most proud of was his Hellabrun Zoo aviary, that he designed in the late 1970s in collaboration with architect Jörg Gribl and engineer Ted Happold. Something of a “little sister” to Otto’s other big Munich project, the Olympic Stadium, the aviary is also a fair few tonnes lighter as well.
The diaphanous sense of space it conveys, spanning part of a wooded landscape, is strongly reminiscent of spider webs. Indeed with this design, Otto really showed his influences from nature to their full extent. Completed in 1980, the aviary is a fine successor to another great example of tensile avian innovation: Cedric Price, Frank Newby and Anthony Armstrong-Jones’ 1964 Snowdon Aviary at London Zoo. The huge steel mesh enclosure covers some 5,000 square metres in area and reaches up to 22 metres in height, allowing its avian residents considerable freedom to stretch their wings.
Originally it was anticipated that the stainless steel mesh canopy would have a working life of around twenty years, yet thirty-five years on it still functions effectively. Remarking upon the structure’s enduring success recently, the Zoo’s Chairwoman Christine Strobl found it in fine feather, describing the enclosure as “virtually maintenance free”.
(fs)Previous page: The view from inside the seemingly gravity-defying structure of Hellabrun’s Aviary.
(Photo: © Atelier Frei Otto Warmbronn).
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