The History of Origami

About a thousand years ago, origami was made in Japan although it might have originated from China. Before paper was made people used to use leather, cloth, and napkins to make origami. When paper was made in China, a superior and cheaper material for origami was discovered. Japanese papermakers improved the quality of paper making it easier to fold. One of the earliest origami instruction book was Sembazuru orikata written by Akisato Rito. It showed how to fold linked cranes. German Friedich Froebel helped to spread paper folding around the world and in return three basic folds where associated with him. In 1880, the word origami was first being used in Japanese schools. In Germany, a school called Bauhaus used origami for training students in commercial design. A Spanish philosopher named Miguel de Unamuno was also significant in increasing origami’s popularity because he would sit in cafés making paper birds. An Argentine master folder spread origami around South America by writing a comprehensive manual about origami. In England, Margaret Campbell wrote a book call Paper Toy Making in 1937 which contained a large collection of origami designs. 2 years later a British mathematician A.H. Stone boosted recreational and educational popularity of paper folding. After World War II, there was large interest in origami in North America. Gershon Legman, who intensively researched origami, made an expedition about the Japanese origami master Akira Yoshizawa. Yoshizawa was considered the greatest folder of his time and what he did inspired many generations of folders.  In the 1950s, Lillian Oppenheimer helped popularize the word origami in North America. She founded an Origami Centre in New York to popularize the art of folding paper. At the end of the 1980s, Jun Maekawa, Fumiaki Kawahata, Issei Yoshino, Meguro Toshiyuki, Peter Engel, Robert Lang, and John Montroll had advanced techniques for folding creatures and insects with multiple legs and antennae. In the early 1990s, Lang made a computer program called TreeMaker to help in the exact folding of bases and and another one called ReferenceFinder for finding short, great folding sequences for any point or line.

People have enjoyed the art of Origami for hundreds of years and we can carry on loving this wonderful art.