Akira Yoshizawa, Japan's Greatest Origami Master: Featuring Over 60 Models and 1000 Diagrams by the Master

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Yoshizawa was clearly very devoutly attached to this temple in Kyoto, even though he lives many miles away in the Tokyo area As we passed through the burial ground which surrounded the temple, we noticed a plot marked as reserved for him. They were of recent construction and as we were shown round, the bosses at the ends of the main roof timbers were pointed out to us.

Whereas his early models often had split backs, he quickly discovered how to fold his animals with rounded, closed backs. Marshmallow and Turtle are looking at the directions to make a sea turtle in Akira Yoshizawa: Japan’s Greatest Origami Master, with text, diagrams, and models by Akira Yoshizawa. He greeted us in his dark blue robes as a Buddhist priest and after we had removed our shoes he welcomed us into the worship room of the temple. Throughout Kyoto we saw flagpoles decorated with strings of carps, regarded as the most valiant of fish. The shimenawa ropes had tied into them bundles of rice straw and o-shide, the white papers cut and folded into zigzags that are another indication of the sacredness of the place.I was asked to sign the visitors' book, the first entry not in Japanese, and then I had my first sight of the exhibition, being first confronted by two large flying dragons and a large and impressive model of Godzilla. Gershon Legman was able to arrange for an exhibition of Yoshizawa's models at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in the autumn of 1955.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, catalogues issued by Japan Trading Publications Ltd (who distributed Japanese books in the West) included an announcement of a new book by Yoshizawa to be named “The Joy of Origami”. Two large traditional stone komainu or lion-dogs lions guarded each side of the entrance to repel evil. Yoshizawa's representative and we took the express train to Kyoto where we were met and driven by car to the Sun Hotel in the centre of Kyoto, where a room had been booked for me. Several other meetings followed including at the Second Intenational Meetig of Scientific Origami at Otsu, to the north of Kyoto in 1994 and another at Munich in Germany in October, 1995.Se trata de verdaderas esculturas artísticas que poseen toda la filosofía, delicadeza y belleza de la esencia de un país, Japón, que rinde culto al refinamiento y al cultivo de la paciencia. I was able to make only a few of them, mostly the simpler ones, but still I enjoyed looking through the more complex ones, too.

Nevertheless, the book does contain a section of models by Yoshizawa, which are clearly recorded in the book as his. Invites Carlos Pomarón, important member of Grupo Zaragozano de Papiroflexia, to the Tribute Exhibition, celebrated in Japan in his 88th birthday.It was followed closely by his founding of the International Origami Centre in Tokyo in 1954, when he was 43. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. However, the published diagrams do not contain the refinements that make it possible for Yoshizawa to breathe life into his own models. This collection of projects by the "father of modern origami" contains detailed instructions for 60 of the master's original works. These provided him with an adequate number of "points" and freed him from having to use two squares of paper for his animals.

Still less did it occur to me that I might receive an invitation to visit Kyoto from Yoshizawa himself.

Master origami artist Akira Yoshizawa was a true innovator who played a seminal role in the rebirth of origami in the modern world. He was known to say that, "When you fold, the ritual and the act of creation is more important than the final result. In fact, the notational system of diagrams widely used today to indicate how models are folded was largely invented by him. Subsequently I acquired copies of Yoshizawa's books and actually met him when he visited England in October,1972 to attend a meeting of the British Origami Society. I thank all those subscribers to Origami-L and my private correspondents who have helped me in the compilation of this list and in particular I thank Joseph Wu of Canada, Marcia Mau of the United States and Doris Lauinger of Germany for thir special help.