Folds
Almost every pop-up book is built from a handful of mechanisms. These are the five we use most. Each model below is live: scroll and it opens.
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01 · Mechanism
A piece folded in half and glued across the gutter. It stands up on its own as the book opens.
Glue each half along a line that leaves the spine at an angle. When the glue edges are cut at 90° to the crease, the crease stands exactly upright once the book lies flat.
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02 · Mechanism
A slide pulled out of the page moves something printed on it: a head turns, an arm waves, a wheel spins.
Behind the page, the slide pushes a lever on a pivot. Lothar Meggendorfer built whole books from these; his first movable book, Lebende Bilder, came out in Munich in 1878.
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03 · Mechanism
A paper wheel turning on a rivet, read through a window or against a scale.
The oldest mechanism here: 21 of the 36 woodcuts in Petrus Apianus's Astronomicum Caesareum (1540) are volvelles, made to work out the positions of the planets.
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04 · Mechanism
A stack of cut frames held apart by concertina strips. You look through the front window into a scene with real depth.
Also called a peepshow book. The format dates from the mid-18th century, and it takes its English name from the souvenirs sold for the opening of the Thames Tunnel under the river in London.
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05 · Mechanism
Covers that tie back to back, so the pages open into a star of scenes you walk around.
Each scene is a set of layers glued between two neighbouring pages. The layers are cut to the width of the gap at full opening, so they fold in half inside the closed book and pull flat when the covers meet.
A short history
Petrus Apianus prints the Astronomicum Caesareum at Ingolstadt. 21 of its 36 woodcuts are volvelles.
The London printer Robert Sayer starts selling turn-up books: pictures under flaps that change the scene.
The Thames Tunnel opens. Peepshow souvenirs sold for it give tunnel books their name.
Lothar Meggendorfer's first movable book, Lebende Bilder, is published in Munich.
Norwich becomes England's first UNESCO City of Literature. We moved here four years later.