Fascinating Origami: 101 Models by Adolfo Cerceda

By Vicente Palacios

Adolfo Cerceda (1923–79) was a talented Argentinian magician and an exceptionally gifted origamist. Many of his creations — such as the Arab on horseback, baseball player, bullfighter, and flamenco singer — are now origami classics.
This book of remarkably original and inventive projects, presented by origami expert Vicente Palacios, provides instructions for constructing over 100 different models attributed to Cerceda. Designed especially for newcomers to the art of paperfolding, they include such traditional figures as a duck in flight, a camel, rabbit, elephant, penguin, cat, jaguar, lion and lioness, butterfly, and polar bear, as well as such unusual subjects as a vampire, kneeling angel, devil, Pegasus, a sofa, and other ingenious creations.
Complete folding instructions accompany each project. There are also directions for general folding techniques, a table of folding symbols, a list of origami organizations, and more. A new introduction by origami expert Peter Engel complements a profusely illustrated volume that will delight beginning and veteran paperfolders alike.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Release date: Oct 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9780486157306

Book preview

Copyright

© Vicente Palacios, by courtesy of the heirs of Ismael Adolfo Cerceda.

Copyright © 1984, 1996 by Vicente Palacios.

Foreword © 1996 by Peter Engel.

All rights reserved under Pan American and International Copyright Conventions.

Bibliographical Note

This Dover edition, first published in 1996, is a corrected and expanded republication of the diagrams and of the English translation (issued as a separate booklet) of the Spanish-language volume Fascinante Papiroflexia, first published by Editorial Miguel A. Salvatella, S. A., Barcelona, Spain, in 1984. The Dover edition adds a new Foreword and list of models by Peter Engel, reflecting his new sequence of the models; an interview, Let Us Listen to Carlos Corda, excerpted from Creation in Paperfolding, by Vicente Palacios (trans. by Brian Bishop, first published by Miguel A. Salvatella, S.A., Publishers, Barcelona, Spain, [n.d.]); and two new figures: Skunk (p. 159) and Rabbit 1 (p. 21). Omitted from the Dover edition are two figures (Giraffe and Lioness), the original Publisher’s Note and a section titled Some Facts in the History of Origami. All the figures, which originally appeared in color, have been reproduced here in black and white.

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the heirs of Ismael Adolfo Cerceda in the creation of this book, and the original Spanish publisher’s generous approval of the alterations undertaken for the present edition.

This Dover edition is published by special arrangement with Editorial Miguel A. Salvatella, S.A., Calle Santo Domingo 5, 08012 Barcelona, Spain.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cerceda, Adolfo.

[Fascinating papiroflexia. English]

Fascinating origami : 101 models by Adolfo Cerceda / [edited by] Vicente Palacios ; with a new foreword by Peter Engel.

p. cm.

Includes index.

9780486157306

1. Origami. 2. Cerceda, Adolfo. I. Palacios, Vicente. II. Title.

TT870. C3813 1996

736’.982—dc21

96-47582

CIP

Manufactured in the United States of America

Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y. 11501

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

FOREWORD, 1996

INTRODUCTION

THE LIFE OF ADOLFO CERCEDA

FIGURES PROVIDED BY MR. GERSHON LEGMAN

LET US LISTEN TO CARLOS CORDA

BEFORE BEGINNING FOLDING

MODELS BY ADOLFO CERCEDA

SYMBOLS USED IN THE DIAGRAMS

STEP-BY-STEP FOLDING DIAGRAMS

OTHER CREATIONS BY ADOLFO CERCEDA

INDEX OF MODELS

ORIGAMI CENTERS AND SOCIETIES

FOREWORD, 1996

This Dover edition is the English translation of Fascinante Papiroflexia: Legado del mago Adolfo Cerceda Carlos Corda, the first book to be devoted solely to the work of the great Argentine origami artist Adolfo Cerceda. The title translates as Fascinating Origami: Legacy of the Magician Adolfo Cerceda Carlos Corda, and identifies Cerceda as first and foremost a magician. Until his death in 1979, Cerceda’s charismatic stage presence, skillful sleight of hand and dexterity in tossing knives and snapping the Argentine bullwhip earned him public acclaim on four continents. Offstage, the ferocious Carlos Corda (the stage name under which he achieved his greatest popularity) was a quiet man of unaffected charm who folded paper animals. In the 1960s and 70s, his designs were lauded and promoted by the well-known origami authors Robert Harbin and Samuel Randlett; he was profiled in the Origamian and contributed frequently to its pages; he befriended Lillian Oppenheimer, Gershon Legman, Ligia Montoya, Dr. Vicente Solórzano, Fred Rohm, Neil Elias, Isao Honda, Akira Yoshizawa and other leading origami figures of the day.

In recent years, however, Cerceda’s reputation has been in eclipse. With Harbin’s Secrets of Origami and Randlett’s Art of Origami and Best of Origami long out of print, it is hardly surprising that Cerceda’s work remains virtually unknown to the youngest generation of paperfolders, with the exception of those in South America and Spain. When I recently mentioned to an audience of leading Japanese folders that Cerceda had been an important influence on my own origami work, I received only quizzical stares. Who was this Cerceda-san?

Ismael Adolfo Cerceda was born in Buenos Aires in 1923. When he was twelve years old, a traveling circus came to town and the young Cerceda was enthralled by its air of mystery and magic. Before long he had committed himself to a life in the theater, and by fifteen he was a professional knife-thrower, touring the continent and Central America. He appeared in stage shows, at nightclubs and on television, mastered magic tricks and the Argentine bullwhip, and became known throughout Europe and the Americas as the Knife-Thrower Extraordinaire.

Like several other famous magicians (most notably Harry Houdini, who wrote a book called Houdini’s Paper Magic, but also the above-mentioned Harbin and a contemporary American magician, folder and theologian, Robert Neale), Cerceda found magic in the art of folding paper. Simply put, he was the most brilliant