VANDA BATTAGLIA & FRANCESCO DECIO
Foreword by SAM ITA
Photography by ARALDO DE LUCA
TUTTLE Publishing
Tokyo | Rutland, Vermont | Singapore
Contents
Introduction
A Brief History of Origami
Traditional Origami Models
Glossary of Origami Folding Symbols
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Preface
I grew up in a rural area of the United States. There was no Japanese community. When I was four or five years old, my grandmother sent care packages from Seattle to my family, containing items such as soy sauce, dried miso, mushrooms, and various pickled vegetables or plums. Sometimes these packages would include a pack of origami paper. They always gave instructions for the same half dozen traditional models. We also had a fairly basic book of origami birds. At the time, I found some of these models very difficult and confusing. Others, easy enough, yet the finished product was unsatisfying. A few seemed to have a magical quality. The resulting object was greater than the sum of its folds. I practiced these models over and over, until I understood their logic, and could recreate them from memory with my eyes closed—often from school paper.
As an adolescent, I did very little origami. As an adult, sometimes I’d buy an origami book in an airport book store or a gift shop. I’d try folding a model or two from it. While I had neglected it, origami was growing at a tremendous pace! Perhaps, because I began folding at such an early age, I had never considered the creative aspects of origami. Each model I had casually folded was the result of someone else’s experimentation, decisions, and careful documentation.
I joined a folding group. We meet periodically at coffee shops in New York to talk origami, and fold. We fold everything; modulars, tessellations, animals, objects, furniture, etc.—often until the place closes. Some of my origami friends began