Otho Orlando Kurz was born in Florence as the son of the sculptor Erwin Kurz, an employee of Adolf von Hildebrand. In 1893, Adolf von Hildebrand was appointed professor at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, and the family of Erwin Kurz moved to Munich. Otho Orlando attended high school in Munich. After graduation, he initially studied electrical engineering but then switched to architecture. After completing his studies with the diploma examination, Kurz worked as an intern under Friedrich von Thiersch, Hans Grässel, and Heinrich von Schmidt.
In 1908, he was commissioned to build the Catholic parish church in Milbertshofen and founded an architectural firm with Eduard Herbert, which secured numerous prestigious construction contracts in Munich. In 1911, Kurz was appointed professor at the Technical University of Munich, where he taught drawing.
During World War I, Kurz was initially employed in monument protection and left military service in 1917 to construct an industrial building in Munich for Bayerische Motorenwerke. Until 1928, he repeatedly worked as the house architect for BMW. In the 1920s, he also became known for some housing projects, which he built in a style close to the "Neuen Sachlichkeit". After the war, Otho Orlando Kurz designed three high-rise buildings for the Viktualienmarkt in Munich, one cylindrical, one rectangular, and one very expansive, intended to be a hotel. Together with Hermann Sörgel, Kurz planned several high-rise cubes with 15 floors and ten elevators as a circle of towers around the old town. These were to be 50 meters high and made of reinforced concrete. None of the projects were realized.
In addition to his architectural work, Kurz also designed furniture and tomb monuments (including the tomb of Paul Heyse at the Munich Waldfriedhof).
Otho Orlando Kurz died on May 11, 1933, from blood poisoning, which he contracted while shaving.
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