Brilliant Origami City

Wataru Ito, who lives in Tokyo but is originally from Saitama, Japan, started working on the castle while he was studying to become an art student. Wataru was bored with his university entrance exams that he decided to create a miniature city out of paper using the ancient craft of origami. Of course once he started the project, it was hard to do anything else, like study for the university exams.

After failing the university exams three times he focused on this project, which became so large. As the cityscape became more complicated, Ito had to sleep under his table inside his tiny apartment to give way for his project. After four years and many paper cuts the final piece measures: 2.4 meters by 1.8 meters and is 1 meter high, which was held together entirely by nothing but paper and glue.

He finally passed his university exams, and now a second year art student at Tokyo University of the Arts. :)

This wonderful masterpiece of art is now being first time displayed at an exhibition on the artificial island of Umihotaru, near Tokyo. The exhibition is called Umi no Ue no Oshiro (A Castle On the Ocean).

This detailed construction took four years to build and was made entirely out of craft paper by folding hundreds of pages and using just a knife and glue.

The city's centrepiece is a castle which is loosely based upon El Temple de la Sagrada Familia (Barcelona, Spain). The central tower is surrounded by a cathedral, school, theme park, factory and airport and comes complete with electrical lights and a moving train.

It took Mr. Ito four years to build the piece he calls "Castle on the Ocean", and now he says he will burn it down when the exhibition is finished.

He said:
"I'm very happy to display my work at a place where people who don't have an interest in arts can come and see it. Looking back now I sometimes ask myself: Did I really manage to create this?"

"I am devoted while I am working on my projects but I quickly lose interest when I complete them. When the exhibition is over I will burn the castle. I thought I could see it rising up from the ashes if I took a video and played it backwards."