Physical model of the cablenet structure

Frei Otto developed the free form cablenet roof structure for the striking German Pavilion at the 1967 Montreal World Expo. There was a tensioned fabric skin suspended below the cable net.

Details of the acrylic sheets showing multiple rubber supports to the cablenet under. Large amounts of expansion and contraction in the sheets lead to a system of flexible rubber gutters between the sheets.

Frei Otto developed the free form cablenet roof structure for the striking German Pavilion at the 1967 Montreal World Expo. There was a tensioned fabric skin suspended below the cable net.

Frei Otto developed the free form cablenet roof structure for the striking German Pavilion at the 1967 Montreal World Expo. There was a tensioned fabric skin suspended below the cable net.

Prior to the German Pavilion at Expo 1967, Otto developed a smaller cablenet structure featuring a high peaked central mast. It housed his Institute for Lightweight Structures

Frei further developed the free formed stressed cablenets for the stadia at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The cladding used large flat rectangular sheets of acrylic supported by flexible rubber pads above the cablenet.

The now familiar saddle shaped anticlastic stressed surfaces which resist both uplift and downward loads. Nowadays seen more with tensioned fabric structures

Mast details

Main stadium edge cable