Robert J. Lang

Robert J. Lang has been an avid student of origami for over thirty years and is now recognized as one of the world’s leading masters of the art, with over 400 designs catalogued and diagrammed. He is noted for designs of great detail and realism, and includes in his repertoire some of the most complex origami designs ever created. His work combines aspects of the Western school of mathematical origami design with the Eastern emphasis upon line and form to yield models that are at once distinctive, elegant, and challenging to fold. They have been shown in exhibitions in Paris, New York, Boston, San Diego, and Tokyo, among others.

Dr. Lang was the first Westerner invited to address the Nippon (Japan) Origami Association’s annual meeting (in 1992) and has been an invited guest at international origami conventions around the world.


Dr. Lang is one of the pioneers of the cross-disciplinary marriage of origami with mathematics; he has been one of the few Western columnists for Origami Tanteidan Magazine, the journal of the Japan Origami Academic Society, and has presented several refereed technical papers on origami-math at mathematical and computer science professional meetings. He has consulted on applications of origami to engineering problems ranging from air-bag design to expandable space telescopes. He is the author or co-author of eight books and numerous articles on origami.

Dr. Lang was born in Ohio and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. After a successful career as a physicist and engineer, during which he authored or co-authored over 80 technical publications and 40 patents on semiconductor lasers, optics, and integrated optoelectronics, he is now a full-time origami artist. Dr. Lang resides in Alamo, California.