In the japanese paperfolding art of origami, cutting the paper is frowned upon. but in 1981, masahiro chatani , professor of architecture at tokyo institute of technology proved that papercutting could indeed produce stunning pieces of art.

along with his colleague keiko nakawaza , chatani developed origamic architecture,a variation of kirigami(itself a variation of origami where cuts are allowed). where you nly needed an X-acto knife and a ruler to create complex 3-dimensional structures out of a single sheet of paper.

Origamic architecture sculptures range from(the relatively simple) geometric patterns to famous buildings facades. its like 3-D pop-up greeting cards, but much , much more complex. while looking at the examples below, keep this in mind: everything' done with simple cuts of the knife.