Origami dates back to, at the very least, 2000 years ago. Most are aware of the Japanese paper crane tsuru, perhaps an airplane or a frog. Most, however, are unaware of the specialized, complex genres of origami succeeding the 20th century.​​​​

 

In Japanese, ori means folding and kami means paper. Representational or figurative origami is the most popular genre of origami, referring to a model that looks like something. Most that have experimented with origami have singularly explored this area; however, this branch of origami shallowly describes the entire field of origami.

 

Non-representational origami has a rich history as well, including traditional Japanese decorative folding, the German Professor, Mattia Geigher’s 16th century napkin folding lecture series, more recent Bauhaus architecture, and modern computational geometry in mathematics.