Origamic Architecture - Origin

Origin

The development of origamic architecture began with Professor Masahiro Chatani’s (then a newly-appointed professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology) experiments with designing original and unique greeting cards. Japanese culture encourages the giving and receiving of cards for various special occasions and holidays, particularly Japanese New Year, and according to his own account, Professor Chatani personally felt that greeting cards were a significant form of connection and communication between people. He worried that in today’s fast-paced modern world, the emotional connections called up and created by the exchange of greeting cards would become scarce.

In the early 1980s, Professor Chatani began to experiment with cutting and folding paper to make unique and interesting pop-up cards. He used techniques of origami (Japanese paper folding) and kirigami (Japanese papercutting), as well as his experience in architectural design, to create intricate patterns which played with light and shadow. Many of his creations are made of stark white paper which emphasizes the shadowing effects of the cuts and folds. In the preface to one of his books, he called the shadows of the three-dimensional cutouts created a “dreamy scene” that invited the viewer into a “fantasy world."

At first, Professor Chatani simply gave the cards to his friends and family. Over the next nearly thirty years, however, he published over fifty books on origamic architecture, many directed at children. He came to believe that origamic architecture could be a good way to teach architectural design and appreciation of architecture, as well as to inspire interest in mathematics, art, and design in young children.

Professor Chatani also spent a good deal of time, even after his retirement, traveling to exhibit his work. He frequently collaborated on books and exhibits with Keiko Nakazawa and Takaaki Kihara.