AbstractThe paper is concerned with the solution and determination of the optimum shape of a retaining wall modelled by the co‐ordinates of a set of points which belongs to a certain permissible space.An optimum design method is formulated as a non‐linear multiobjective optimization problem. The following two objective functions, which are mutually conflicting and non‐commensurable with each other, are considered: (a) to minimize the total weight of the wall, (b) to maximize the structure stability.A set of Pareto optimum solutions is derived numerically by adopting a logical algorithm, and a Pereto optimum solution is obtained by investigating the trade‐off relationships among design obj