The complexity of the flagellar axoneme derives from ca. 600 types of modular building block assembled hierarchically. Among these building block, axonemal dyneins are indispensable for flagellar motility. On each of nine doublet microtubules cyclically arrayed in an axoneme, dyneins are aligned in two rows, outer- and inner-arm dyneins. In Chlamydomonas, the model organism for flagellar motility, several major subspecies of dyneins have been described; one outer-arm dynein with three different heavy chains, one heterodimeric inner-arm dynein and six inner-arm dyneins. Each of the heavy chains is reported to have different mechanical properties. They are precisely arranged along doublet microtubules and regulated in a coordinated fashion to produce periodic flagellar beating. To obtain a hint of this complexity, we have carried out in vitro motility assays and compared mechanical properties of various dynein heavy chains, such as velocity of microtubule sliding and processivity. Furthermore, we measured the sliding velocity of microtubules driven by a pairwise mixture of the faster dynein and the slower dynein at various ratios and evaluated the effect of the slower dyneins on the microtubule translocation by the faster ones. We found that the slower dynein would not significantly retard the microtubule translocation by the faster dynein but could be recruited into the translocation of microtubules in the medium velocity. The DNA-origami techniques in which cytoplasmic dyneins were combined together on a DNA-origami rod reveal auto-inhibition between dynein molecules and strain-dependent release from the auto-inhibition. We review these methods for the bottom-up and directed assembly of modular constructs in vitro and we highlight how they shed light on the self-organized coordination of dyneins at force generation in the axoneme.