Nagakin Capsule Tower. Kisho Kurokawa. This now rundown building is the realised key building of the metabolist project, a dream of handling the explosive growth of Tokyo and other cities (look here). The capsule were the cells of the metabolist city, movable functional living units. No capsule has ever been moved on this tower. This building should be seen as an alternative dream future that never happened. As many utopian futures there are many problems to address.
the political goal of metabolist urban planning could only have meant the erasure of private land ownership and its total re-organization.
Imagining the organic city p. 172 - M. Schalk.
The idea lives on in the capsule hotels which can be found around major train stations in Japan. But there the capsules fills interior space instead of defining the exterior as here. Also individual movable homes, capable of creating informal cities of course exists, but are mostly ignored because they are the homes of the poor.
As seen in the distance.
Regular side.
Iconic less regular side.
Other projects: National Art Center
Access: Shimbashi station, JR and Tokyo Metro.
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