Origami

ORIGAMI

ORIGAMI Origami (from ori meaning “folding”, and kami meaning “paper”) is the traditional Japanese folk art of paper folding, which sterted in the 17th century AD. The number of basic origami folds is small, but they can be combined in a variety of ways to make interesting designs.

HISTORY While Japan seems to have had the most extensive traditionn, there is evidence of independent paper folding in China, but also in Europe (Germany, Spain). In Japan, the first unambiguous reference to a paper model is in a short poem which describes paper butterflies in a dream.

Origami paper “kami” (Japanese for paper) usually square 2,5 cm to 25 cm or more coloured on one side; dual coloured; patterned weighs slightly less than copy paper money origami

Types of Origami: Action origami Modular origami Wet-folding origami Pureland origami Mathematical origami Technical origami

ACTION ORIGAMI Action origami includes origami that flies, or uses the kinetic energy of a persons hands, applied at a certain region on the model.

MODULAR ORIGAMI Modular origami consists of putting a number of identical pieces together to form a complete model.

WET-FOLDING ORIGAMI Wet-folding is an origami technique for producing models with gentle curves.

PURELAND ORIGAMI Pureland origami is origami with the restriction that only one fold may be done at a time.

MATHEMATICAL ORIGAMI Mathematical origami is an origami technique for producing models based on various mathematical shapes.

TECHNICAL ORIGAMI Technical origami allows for the creation of extremelly complex multilimbed models (many-legged centipedes, human figures...).

Some notable origamists: Peter Engel - influential origami artist and theorist Tomoko Fuse - famous for boxes and unit origami Robert Harbin - popularized origami in Britain Satoshi Kamiya - one of the youngest geniuses of the origami field Issei Yoshino - famed for his multimodular Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops sceletons