Origami Masters of the Past and Present

There has been many people who have dabbled in the art of paper folding, but few are skilled or creative enough to be called masters at this art.

Akira Yoshizawa: The Original Master

Akira Yoshizawa will always be remembered as the creator of modern origami. His masterpieces have gave birth to new designs and ideas that have been tried out by origami creators from around the world. His diagrams for folding his creations became the outline to origami instruction books for all over the world. He became the 'sensei' (Japanese for teacher) for all modern origami artists. Though, he didn't become an origami master over night.

Yoshizawa was born on March 14th, 1911 in Kaminokawa in the Tochigi Prefecture of Japan. As a young boy he taught himself origami. At the age of 13 he moved to Tokyo to work at a factory. Years later he was promoted to a technical draftsman and taught other workers geometric shapes by using origami models. Awhile later he quit his job to pursue his dream of being an origami artist. For the next few decades he lived in poverty and sold soup condiments to get by, but he got to do his origami everyday and and create thousands of new designs.

Finally at the age of 43 his work was recognized by Asahi Graph Magazine when they commissioned him to make origami models of the zodiac animals. After that his work was featured in other magazines which lead him out of poverty. In 1954 he founded the International Origami Center in Tokyo. His work was displayed at an exhibit at Louvre in 1998, which became known as the largest and most successful origami exhibit to date.

Yoshizawa died on April 14th, 2005 on his 96th birthday. Yoshizawa was definitely the Grandmaster of origami. His work has even inspired Robert J. Lang to take origami to a new level that utilizes its mathematical capabilities and uses it for inventing new things to help the world.



Robert J. Lang: The Origami Scientist

Born in May 1961, Robert J. Lang has always put his creative and practical mind to use. His fascination and creativity lead him to make is own unique style of paper folding that has helped him with complicated real-world problems.

Lang has managed to earn his PhD in Applied physics, land a promising job in NASA's Jet Propulsion lab, and do so much for the scientific and mathematical community while still finding the time to do many things with his origami work. 

His top 3 greatest achievements, so far, have been: helping to produce a new crease pattern for airbags with EASi, a heart support, and a telescope. The crease patterns were a big hit as they made the airbag very small and compact also the design made the airbags very efficient for accident safety. The heart support was made out of mesh wire that was to be folded and then implanted in a congestive heart failure patient. Once inside of the patient it would expand and protect their heart. The telescope was literally Dr.Lang's biggest achievement. He developed a space telescope that was 40 time larger than the Hubble, but it could be collapsible because of his origami designs.

Like these two masters, hopefully in the future more creative and logical minds will be able to use origami to pursue their dreams.