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Precedents / Nakagin Capsule Tower

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put caption hereNakagin Capsule TowerProject OverviewKisho Kurokawa

Ginza, Tokyo, Japan

1970-1972

Steel + Reinforced Concrete

Funcional Cores + Capsule Modules

13 floors + 11 floors/140 units

Residential + Office

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Precedents / Nakagin Capsule Tower

Nakagin Capsule TowerProject ContextThe Metabolist manifesto, Metabolism 1960: Proposals for New Urbanism, opens with the following text:

“We regard human society as a vital process – a continuous development from atom to nebula. The reason why we use such a bio-logical word, metabolism, is that we believe design and technology should be a denota-tion of human society.”

With the arrival of the year 1960, in the context of Japan’s fragmented post-war urban landscapes, arose a formal societal discussion regarding the nature of these landscapes in a globalized, post-industrial context. Metabolism, an ideology essential to this dialogue, offered a relatively a-contextual solution to these ruined landscapes that

reconfigured the relationship between industry, technology, and social organization into a relevant and adaptable configuration for a progressive post-industrial society, inspired by the transient chemical processes that enable vitality within organic matter. The Metabolist objective was not the acceptance of metabolism as a natural historical process, but the retranslation and utilization of the idea as a flexible urban system that overrides the conventional obstacles of geography, tradition, and epoch.

Kisho Kurokawa’s Nakagin Capsule Tower (1972), manifesting from this dialogue, pres-ents an urban system designed to accom-modate the dynamic lifestyle of the urban dweller within an increasingly technocratic society. Composed of 140 flexible and self-contained capsules, designed with estima-tions for longevity and renewal, bolted to two fixed cores, the system theoretically contains

the capacity to respond to the dimension of time, through the modification of itself to maintain relevance.

Within the increasingly informed context of the 21st Century, the Nakagin Capsule Tower, despite having suffered a multiplicity of sociopolitical neglect that will quite possibly result in its deconstruction, arguably contin-ues to reflect a metabolic process. While the relevance of its current state is continually debased within Tokyo’s contemporary urban fabric, its very deconstruction offers new possibilities for programmatic expansion starting at the level of the module, once again providing an opportunity for retranslation.

High Red CenterCleaning Event (Be Clean! Campaign to Pro-mote Cleanliness and Order in the Metropolitain Area)1964

21st Century Nakagin

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Precedents / Nakagin Capsule Tower

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put caption hereNakagin Capsule TowerBuilding Systems + ConstructionThe towers were designed as functional cores, housing the major building systems and circulation spaces. The capsules are bolted onto the cores and secured with steel tension cables. Each capsule is an independent unit capable of being replaced without affecting the overall building structure; however, due to the construction methods used, all of the capsules above the one being replaced must be removed in order to replace the unit.

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Precedents / Nakagin Capsule Tower

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Nakagin Capsule TowerBuilding System Analysis

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Precedents / Nakagin Capsule Tower

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Nakagin Capsule TowerModule Analysis

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