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Nakagin Capsule Tower: Revisiting the Future of the Recent Past

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 65; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1531-314x.2011.01158.x

1531-314X

Zhongjie Lin,

Urban Planning and Landscape Design

Abstract The debates surrounding the proposed demolition of Kisho Kurokawa's Nakagin Capsule Tower provide a unique opportunity to re-examine Metabolism's historic role in postwar modernism and its influence on contemporary architecture. Although one can argue that contradictions between urban development and architectural conservation are a commonplace characteristic of the contemporary metropolis, the intense conflict between redevelopment and conservation in Japan is emblematic of an enduring cultural attitude toward urban change that relies upon a paradoxical relationship between transformation and continuity. This distinctly Japanese cultural attitude underlies Metabolist urban theory and informs the design of the Nakagin Capsule Tower. The building was an experimental project meant to support a new postwar lifestyle and facilitate change and renewal in an increasingly dynamic urban fabric. In many ways, the ideas and values that created the Nagakin Capsule Tower are the same ideas and values that are threatening to destroy it. An examination of the building's recent past and possible futures reveals the complex legacy of Metabolism's unfulfilled urban visions.