Sunday, January 16, 2005; Page N04
HERE & NOW
DESIGN
IT IS FITTING TO FIND the delicate art of origami in the smallest
gallery of the National Building Museum.
A larger space would overwhelm such ephemeral
sculptures. "Origami as Architecture"
stars 20 buildings made of cut and folded
sheets of paper or plastic board. Despite
their fragile nature, these feats of imagination
are monumental. The Statue of Liberty is
a marvel of sea-green paper. The Sydney Opera
House has almost gossamer sails. The Washington
Monument inside a plastic box unfolds like
a pop-up. The artists are two Japanese masters,
Takaaki Kihara and Kazukiyo Kurosu, working
from designs credited to Masahiro Chatani,
a professor of architecture at Tokyo Institute
of Technology and the father of origami buildings.
No origami show would be complete without
highly colored folded birds, and the lively
ones here seem to flutter in place. But the
highlight, especially just days before the
inaugural festivities, is the Capitol. From
dome to ceremonial steps, Washington's gleaming
icon has been distilled to its structural
essence. The origami versions -- there are
three -- preserve the elegance and power
of a grand design. In skilled hands, paper
can be a most poetic tool.