EThere are in every city; large, clunky monuments of bygone times that failed because of their own claim to fundamentally rethink the way we live. In the early 1970s, the architect Kishō Kurokawa designed a modular residential building in Tokyo’s Ginza district that consisted of two interconnected concrete towers: the Nakagin Capsule Tower. The eleven or thirteen story high building was not designed as a block of flats, but consisted of 140 box-shaped capsules that were suspended from the main shafts of the towers by means of steel bolts. The compact units, each 2.4 by four meters in size, were intended as straightforward and conveniently located accommodation options for so-called “salarymen”: single employees who often work to the point of self-abandonment.
They should be able to sleep, work and shower in the prefabricated steel cells. The floor space corresponded to that of a traditional tea house: exactly four tatami mats, i.e. ten square meters. The standardized residential units with bathroom, air conditioning and color TV were equipped with identical built-in furniture. There was a bed under a 1.30 meter porthole window, next to it was a bookshelf, kitchen stove and refrigerator, as well as a telephone and a Sony recorder with a tape recorder, all accessible from the bed. There was even a tiny tub in the small bathroom. In a manifesto Kurokawa wrote: “Man, machine and space form a new organic body.”
Like the cells of an organism
The futuristic-looking marvel is now one of the most impressive skyscrapers in Ginza. It was erected in 1972 in just 30 days, because the individual cells were already manufactured in Osaka, transported to Tokyo by truck and hung there by crane. The Nakagin Capsule Tower is considered a rare example of Japanese metabolism, an architectural movement of the post-war years that propagated the interchangeability of buildings and urban landscapes in line with social changes. The avant-garde group around Kenzō Tange designed flexible, expandable urban structures. This is why Kurokawa designed the self-supporting modules in such a way that they can be replaced and replaced like the cells of an organism that is constantly renewing itself.
The apartments do not have more living space than 10 square meters.
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Image: AFP
Originally, the tower in the city plagued by housing shortages was supposed to serve as inspiration for other structures that could fit into Tange’s vision of a coherent super city. But when the metabolism movement withdrew with the oil crisis, the building became unique. It was the time that the structure finally overtook. Kurokawa, who died in 2007, originally planned to replace the capsules every 25 years, but this was never implemented due to the high costs (estimated at around 75,000 euros per module) and partly unclear ownership.
No hot water, but mold
For 14 years now, the end of the tower has always seemed sealed. There was no buyer who would have financed the restoration. In 2009, the demolition only narrowly failed because the commissioned company went bankrupt in the course of the banking crisis. Less than two dozen capsules are now inhabited, and many are used as storage or hobby rooms. There is no more hot water, the ventilation system has been switched off because of the asbestos insulation, mold is creeping from the ceiling. Some residents had hoped that the building could be declared a World Heritage Site in the wake of the Olympic Games and the attention of international visitors. Vain. Concerned that the building could continue to deteriorate, the real estate company that owns the property and the remaining capsule owners decided in March to abandon the built piece of utopia. It is to be demolished by spring 2022.
Real estate developers are already in the starting blocks. After all, with its luxury shops and department stores, Ginza is one of the most expensive places in Tokyo. A citizens’ initiative is meanwhile working on dismantling and restoring the capsules and giving them a second life. The modules are to be donated to institutions or exhibited at various locations around the world and rented out for overnight stays. According to reports, the Center Pompidou, among others, is interested. A model capsule can already be seen in the Museum of Modern Art in Saitama north of Tokyo. In this way, the building, which was never able to keep its promise of a better world, remains true to its vision even after death.
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