It's a bird! It's a plane! It's...origami?

On a scale of 1 to 3 stars, the "Daily Planet Building" project is a 1, meaning it is the simplest level of the paper-folding projects in John Montroll's DC Super Heroes Origami (Capstone, September 2015). As an origami novice, I decided to start with the easiest possible project, thinking “Buildings are rectangles; you’ve totally got this.”



But I will forever claim that I was doomed from the beginning: the origami paper specifically designed to be the Daily Planet building was not a square. I feel like that should have been a prerequisite for the production of this book:

“We’re creating a book on how to do origami projects. Origami paper is square. Should we make sure our paper is square?”

“Nah, no one will notice if the paper is rectangular. Just print it. What? No, no, just print. We’re good.”



And I began.

Following the step-by-step instructions, I found myself repeatedly flipping back to the handy key in the front which explains different folds and how to do them. I did not master the “squash fold.” I imagine mastering the squash fold is not in the cards for me. But the “pleat-fold”? I’ve definitely got that one down:



The squash fold, for your viewing pleasure:



At this point, my windows aren’t matching up and, for some reason, the base of my building has an extra side. There are lots of little steps left between “extra-sided-base” and “finished” and all of them are pleat-folds with mountain-folds along the crease and squash folds to make things…pointy? I’m not even done and it already looks like the Crooked Man built the Daily Planet. Or like something from A Serious of Unfortunate Events happened in Metropolis (that’s where Superman is from, right?).

I squash and pleat and create ART. Because I am an ARTIST. Then, the final step is to bend slightly so the building is 3D and can stand. I turn it over. This is what I have:

  It does stand...when supported by my water bottle. To prove to myself that I am capable of folding paper, I cut my own origami paper and started over. I still have not mastered the squash folds. But look! Look at the difference when the paper is square!



That is a Daily Planet! A Daily Planet built by a not-very-imaginative Metropolis-ian (Metropolian? Metropolitan?) architect. Look at the detail! And that flat base. People could totally work in that thing. Tiny, two-dimensional, imaginary people.