Modern Origami

Only a few dozen traditional Japanes designs have come down to us, such as the flapping bird, crane, jumping frog or waterbomb (balloon). During the 1930s, though, the founding genius of modern origami - Akira Yoshizawa - came to realize that the art had enormous creative potential. Following his example, many other people around the world have created tens of thousands of new designs, some elegantly simple, others enormously complex. The designs range from animals to manmade objects and from expressive abstract forms to geometric solids.

Yoshizawa Akira is widely responsible for the spread of modern day origami. After centuries of people folding the same traditional models, Master Yoshizawa published books with completely new models starting in the early 1950's. He, together with American Sam Randlett, also developed the standard set of origami diagram symbols that is still used today. Today, Yoshizawa, aged 94, is regarded as the grandmaster of origami in the world.