Chandigarh, India, is a city known for its clean streets, green spaces, and numerous monuments. One sculpture, an 85-foot-tall symbol known as “Open Hand,” was designed by Swiss-French architect, designer, and urban planner Le Corbusier. The pioneer of Modernist architecture also imagined several of the city’s government buildings. The Chandigarh Capitol Complex, a compound made up of three buildings, three monuments (“Open Hand” included), and a lake, was officially declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016. Now, you can build your own personal “Punjab and Haryana High Court”—one of the structures in Le Corbusier’s Capitol Complex—out of paper with the new book Le Corbusier Paper Models: 10 Kirigami Buildings To Cut and Fold.
The book, by Marc Hagan-Guirey, is a crafter’s paradise. It’s a step-by-step kirigami guide (which is a variation of origami that allows for the cutting of paper, rather than solely folding it) that teaches readers how to create paper buildings designed to mimic real places designed by the famed architect.
Perforated templates can be ripped from the book’s binding. That includes 10 of Le Corbusier’s most renowned works—from the functional, automobile-inspired Maison Citrohan house in Stuttgart, Germany, to the Unité d’habitation residential housing development in Marseille, France, and the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts on Harvard University’s campus, the only building designed by Le Corbusier in the United States.
Hagan-Guirey is a kirigami paper artist whose previous book, Frank Lloyd Wright Paper Models, takes on a similar format. His newest paperback offering features photographs, crafting tips, and instructions on how to cut and connect different pieces of paper to build small-scale models without using glue, and only with the help of a scalpel, ruler, and cutting mat.
Pre-order it for $29.99 here.