A friend of mine came across this while surfing the Web and thought I’d like it. He knows I like paper craft (as anyone one the blog has figured out) and he knows I like castles (as my first pop-up book can attest) – so the combination of these is a sure fire favorite. I was stunned at the level of complexity and sophistication achieved in this tour de force of paper craft. Check out some of the amazing photos at Tokyobling’s blog as well as get some info on the exhibition. A young art student named Wataru Itou spent FOUR years working on this project to complete a degree at a Tokyo art university. A few more images can be found at the main Japanese website for the Uminohotaru gallery.
Also, I was able to find an article on the paper craft castle here. Since I don’t read Japanese, I had to rely on Google translate to get the gist of the story but it looks like the sprawling town (complete with a castle, construction cranes and moving train) was displayed in a student exhibition earlier this year. At the end of the show, this labor of love was to be burned to the ground! At the last minute, the owner of the gallery rescued it from the flames and found an exhibition space in the underwater Uminohotaru gallery off the coast of Tokyo.
So glad to see this work of art survive to enchant future audiences. Including me.
- Kyle
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