Architecture
Nakagin Capsule Tower to be Demolished Mid-April
Nakagin Capsule Tower to be Demolished Mid-April
Following months of uncertainties and preservation attempts, Kisho Kurokawa’s iconic Nakagin Capsule Tower will be demolished on April 12th of this year. Tatsuyuki Maeda, one of the current owners of the tower, explained that a team will try to preserve some of the capsules, and regenerate them as accommodation units and museum installations across the world.
Last year, Kisho Kurokawa Architects and Urban Design Office Chiyoda-ku announced that they aim to dismantle the iconic architecture and reuse its capsules as accommodation units and museum installations. The regeneration plan follows the initial concept of “Metabolism”, re-configurating the elements instead of complete demolition, all sourced through crowdfunding campaigns, which has already begun on the Motion Gallery site since July 2nd to fund the repairs of the capsules being donated to museums.
Since 2018, the buildings has been operating as a “Monthly Capsules” facility, which offers people the chance to stay at the tower as trial accommodation for one month. Over the past two and a half years, the capsules were positively received by over 200 occupants, which inspired the team to develop nationwide “accommodation capsules”.
Inaugurated in 1972, the Metabolist structure is made of 140 capsules across two adjoining towers of 11 and 13 floors each. The capsules feature 10-square-meter rooms with large windows, distributed around a central pillar. The tower was designed around the vision of an “adaptable, dynamic, ever-changing architecture”, where modules can be plugged, exchanged, or replaced into the central core every 25 years. However, they were gradually deteriorated instead since repairment works were never done.
News via franceinfo: