Thursday Salute to Originals: Paper/Origamic Architecture
We rarely talk about paper art in this blog, mainly because the architectural industry doesn’t generally regard paper as a material suited for construction sites and we are more excited to see designs with materials such as natural stone, glass, wood, and resin. However, paper is still important to the GPI Design team in the design and drawing phase. (Any designers who have eliminated sketching in the creative process in favor of computer programs? We move back and forth between physical model, sketches, and CAD.)
The paper art we are looking at today is called Paper Architecture, according to the artist, Ingrid Siliakus. It refers to the art of creating an object out of a single piece of paper. This particular art form, which is also known as Origamic Architecture, is developed by a famous Japanese artist Masahiro Chatani and was first used in designing greeting cards or holiday cards.
The subject of Ingrid’s work ranges from the world’s renowned architecture buildings to abstract sculptures. Each object is just one single paper and can be folded back into a flat plane. (If I’m lucky, I probably can cut out a snowflake with one piece of paper. A whole 3-D building?!). Ingrid describes the process of outlining, cutting, and folding each paper as building a real structure, the construction of which requires intense attention to detail.
‘Big City’, 2011. The lower part of one of the four sides.Pin It
‘Big City’, 2011.Pin It
Cosmopolitan third edition, 2011.Pin It
Palicio del marques de Salamanca, 2007. Pin It
Concert Hall, 2003. The actual building is a design of Frank Gehry. Pin It
When we are all busy drawing our skyscrapers on the computer, it’s refreshing to see someone who creates hers out of plain paper by hand. Ingrid’s paper architecture reminds us that dedication to craft, precision work, and unleashing the potential of material can create statement pieces.