Modular Origami - History

History

The first historical evidence for a modular origami design comes from a Japanese book by Hayato Ohoka published in 1734 called Ranma Zushiki. It contains a print that shows a group of traditional origami models, one of which is a modular cube. The cube is pictured twice (from slightly different angles) and is identified in the accompanying text as a tamatebako, or a 'magic treasure chest'.

Isao Honda's World of Origami (Japan Publications ISBN 0-87040-383-4 published in 1965) appears to have the same model, where it is called the 'Cubical Box'. The six modules required for this design were developed from the traditional Japanese paperfold commonly known as the Menko. Each module forms one face of the finished cube.

There are several other traditional Japanese modular origami designs, including balls of folded paper flowers known as kusudama, or medicine balls. These designs are not integrated and are commonly strung together with thread. The term kusudama is sometimes, rather inaccurately, used to describe any three-dimensional modular origami structure resembling a ball.

There are also a few modular designs in the Chinese paperfolding tradition, notably the Pagoda (from Maying Soong) and the Lotus made from Joss paper.

Most traditional designs are however single-piece and the possibilities inherent in the modular origami idea were not explored further until the 1960s when the technique was re-invented by Robert Neale in the USA and later by Mitsonobu Sonobe in Japan. Since then the modular origami technique has been popularized and developed extensively, and now there have been thousands of designs developed in this repertoire.