The Many Lives of the Nakagin Capsule Tower

“This building is not an apartment house.” With this declaration, Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa introduced the Nakagin Capsule Tower as a radically new vision for urban living. Completed in 1972, the structure consisted of 140 single-occupancy capsules, prefabricated offsite and attached to two concrete-and-steel cores in Tokyo’s Ginza district. The building became the defining realization of Metabolism, an avant-garde Japanese movement of the 1960s whose members imagined cities and buildings that could adapt over time.

Kurokawa imagined his building and its modular capsules as a dynamic system. Originally marketed as micro-dwellings for commuting businessmen, the capsules were repurposed into second homes, offices, dorm rooms, art studios, tea rooms, libraries, galleries, and DJ booths. Once a symbol of Japan’s postwar techno-futurism, the building was controversially demolished in 2022 after years of deferred maintenance. Yet its legacy lives on.

At the heart of The Many Lives of the Nakagin Capsule Tower stands capsule A1305, a fully restored unit from the Tower’s top floor. The exhibition also brings together original drawings and models with ephemera, photographs, and films to explore how this unconventional structure became a hive of creativity, debate, and community. Video interviews with former residents and a three-dimensional model show how Kurokawa’s experiment evolved from a prototype for flexible urban dwelling to a case study in preservation. The story of the Nakagin Capsule Tower invites us to imagine how architecture might evolve beyond what its designers envision, taking on new roles, functions, and meanings.

Organized by Evangelos Kotsioris, Assistant Curator, with Paula Vilaplana de Miguel, Curatorial Associate, Department of Architecture and Design.
 

Night time at the Nakagin Capsule Tower, with Mr. Takayuki Sekine seen through the window of capsule B1004, 2016. © Jeremie Souteyrat