ASIAN ARCHITECTURE (ARC60403/ARC2234)

PROJECT 2:

The adaptation of metabolism movement in Nakagin Capsule Tower and its influence and contribution to Japanese and International Architecture

PREPARED BY:

SIA HONG JIE (0323506)

ICHE DUNSTAN OMARI (0323347)

SUNG SONG HO (0322100)

SHAM ZHEN WEN (0317733)

DANNY TONG CHIN SWEE (0323484)

IZZAT ABDUL MUHAYMIN BIN JAFRI (0319437)

TUTOR:

MS. IDA MAZLAN

SUBMISSION DATE:

29th NOVEMBER 2016

Table of content

1.0 Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 03

2.0 Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 04

3.0 Metabolism movement ………………………………………………………………………………………… 05

4.0 Creation of Metabolism Movement ...…………………………………………………………………… 07

5.0 Metabolism in the Nakagin Capsule Tower …………………………………………………………… 10

6.0 Obstacles in application of Metabolism to the Nakagin Capsule Tower ………………… 13

7.0 Influences of Nakagin Capsule Tower …………………………………………………………………… 17

8.0 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 21

9.0 References ………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 22

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1.0 Abstract

Metabolism is a term that is used to describe chemical reactions that are involved in maintaining the

living status of the cells in the organism. What happens when architects want to apply that into

architecture? Under the influence of Tange Kenzo, a group of architects came out with the concept of

Metabolism, a modern architecture movement originating in Japan and was most influential in the

1960s—trending roughly from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. They believe that cities and buildings

are not static entities, but are ever-changing like organisms and their cells, hence the name

“metabolism”. Being the world’s first structure that implemented the innovative idea of capsule

architecture based off metabolism, Kisho Kurokawa, who is one of the founders of the Metabolism

movement in Japan during the 1960s, designed the Nakagin Capsule Tower encasing his vision of an

architectural movement representative of organic growth and restructuring within buildings.

Metabolically designed, it is built around a spine-like infrastructure with prefabricated, replaceable cell-

like parts—easily attached and readily removable when their lifespan is over. Theoretically, the capsules

could be replaced or moved easily, which fits the concept of a living being that can replace its cells.

However, it never happened because of poor maintenance and sustainability issues. And now it

currently faces demolition threats due the culminating problems and high real estate value. Ever since

the Nakagin Capsule Tower was built, there has been demand in the construction of Capsule hotels in

Japan due to its ability to accommodate a lot of people in a small piece of land. These capsule hotel

designs have also been adapted outside of japan such in Russia (Sleepbox Hotel), Singapore (THE POD)

and others.

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2.0 Introduction

Metabolism is a term that is used to describe chemical reactions that are involved in maintaining the

living status of the cells in the organism. What happens when architects want to apply that into

architecture?

Under the influence of Tange Kenzo, they came out with Metabolism, a modern architecture

movement originating in Japan that was most influential in the 1960s—trending roughly from the late

1950s to the early 1970s. They believed that cities and buildings are not static entities, but are ever-

changing like organism and its cells, hence the name “metabolism”. These buildings are built around a

spine-like infrastructure with replaceable cells/capsules around them.

Being the world’s first structure that implemented the innovative idea of capsule architecture based

off metabolism, Kisho Kurokawa, who is one of the founder of the Metabolism movement in japan

during the 1960s, designed the Nakagin Capsule Tower encasing his vision of an architectural movement

which represents organic growth and restructuring within buildings.

In this paper, we aim to find out more about the Metabolism movement, its application in the

Nagakin Capsule Tower and influence it had on Japanese and International Architecture.

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3.0 Metabolism movement

Since ancient times, conception of good life and perfect world have been firmly rooted to the

form of the city. Metabolist urban visions are part of the longstanding utopian visions, in which

speculations of future environment were combined with ideas of social progress. The Metabolists were

not trained urban planners, nor have any administrative power to implement their planning concepts.

What differentiates them and professional planners, according to Robert Fishman, lies in their attitudes

toward social change. Metabolists do not play by the rules. They are free to express in their works

without the concern of tradition and technicality while the latter confine themselves to “technical

problems” and discourage any suggestion that urban planning can be the cause of social change. Amidst

Japans’ rapid urban growth, Metabolists criticized the authority’s competency to cope with the chaotic

changes, while offering an alternative image of modern society.

Metabolism is an architectural movement based in Japan which started c. 1960, when a group of

young architects and designers published their revolutionary manifesto, Metabolism: The Proposals for

New Urbanism at the World Design Conference in Tokyo. Their intention is shown in the opening

statement of the manifesto, each member of the group will propose designs of the future world. They

regard human society as a vision of continuous development and growth. They believe design and

technology as the roots of civilization. They do not accept metabolism as a natural passive process, but

encourage active development of society through metabolism movement.

They borrowed the term “metabolism” from biochemistry field which is an important scientific

discovery during the 1950s, which described the physical and chemical processes in an organism by

which its material substance is produced, maintained, and destroyed, and by which energy is made.

They approach cities as living organisms which undergoes various metabolic cycles. They noted

city grows, regenerate, adapt, and die. Some last long time but some are ephemeral.

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Figure 1: Illustration of the growth of an organism in Tange’s Plan for Tokyo to justify the city’s linear extension.

The Metabolist design project are easily characterized as massive in scale in respect of time and

space, with small short term components attached. Their designs usually consist of a long-term

structure, which is basically the backbone of the design, attaching the small in scale, pre-fabricated units

like houses that can be replace based on the society. Their approach to cities as a process means their

designs are organic in form. They often envisioned the sea and the sky as the future of human habitats.

Figure 2: Marine city, K. Kikutake, 1959

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4.0 Creation of the Metabolism Movement

The Japanese society, after World War II, had the necessary ingredients to stimulate the

metabolism projects, which is the combination of drastic change and the impotence of dealing with such

drastic change within the existing system, a situation that had been seen in other countries during

periods of significant transition such as, Italy in the early Renaissance and England and France at the

beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

Figure 3: The day after the bombing of Nagasaki (english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/levine/bombing)

The recent experience of war raised social and technical changes. The various intellectual and political

movements in the postwar period were indications of such social conditions. This gave birth to the

Metabolist movement.

The Metabolist group was ‘formed’ during the preparation of World Design Conference held by

International Design Community (IDC) in 1960, Tokyo. By the rising international reputation completing

the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, Tange Kenzo was made the director overseeing the conference

programs. A group of young rising star architects, including Masato Otaka, Kiyonori Kikutake, Kenji

Ekuan, and Kiyoshi Awazu was gathered to assist Tange, led by Takashi Asada, Noboru Kawazoe and

Noriaki Kurokawa.

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After work, the group of architects often go to a Japanese-style inn called Ryugetsu Ryokan, where a lot

of young architects, scholars and artists gather and discuss their work. The young architects met an

atomic physicist, Mitsuo Taketani, who presented them a lot of the new scientific discoveries, and the

dialectic approach, heavily influenced the Metabolists’ design methods.

Asada was an indispensable figure in the formation of Metabolism, his intelligence and talent of speech

made the gathering and discussion at the inn often became his solo, speaking the everyday phenomena

to the environmental issues of the earth, providing the theoretical base for futurist design ideas of

Metabolism.

Figure 4: Kiyonori Kikutake's Marine City (1968) (article.sapub.org/10.5923.j.arch.20160604.03)

In the early 1960s, Fumihiko Maki, an architect trained in Harvard, joined the team, enhancing the

international presence in the group.

While examining Kikutake’s Marine City project, inspired by the new knowledge in biology, the group of

architects notice that cities should be capable of continuously growing, and renewing itself, as an

organism’s natural metabolism. Finally, they agreed to use the biological term as the key concept of the

design as well as the name of the group – Metabolism.

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There are in fact two factions of design ideas: the biological metaphor between the city and organism,

and the method of making ‘group form’.

The bold ideas immediately drew attention at the World Design Conference and became the highlight of

the event. For the first time, the works of Japanese architects were displayed side by side with world-

class masters, including Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, and more.

In 1962, Maki and Kurokawa were invited to the meetings of Team 10, further raising their status, as the

representative of postwar Japanese architecture.

However, due to political constraints and limited resources, especially those related to land, often

restricted these ambitious architects, and forced them to express their ideas in theoretical projects. One

of the few projects that got built was the Nakagin Capsule Tower.

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5.0 Metabolism in the Nakagin Capsule Tower

Figure 5: The Nakagin Capsule Tower building (source: Arch daily, 2016)

The Nakagin Capsule Tower that was built during the 1972 was the first of its kind to introduce

metabolism movement to a building. The building stood in the city of Ginza where it was the tallest

building at that time. It was unique, that differentiate between the western style buildings. The Nakagin

Capsule Tower was built with two towers connecting each other with a middle spine in between like a

living organism. The Nakagin Capsule Tower was built to be flexible, interchangeable, and replaceable to

indicate the growth and change of the culture and society during that time. The building was the most

influential at that time that start the era of miniature rooms or capsule rooms that is known today. It

was a monument, a symbol of the future that Kisho Kurokawa envisioned.

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Figure 6: The individual capsules on the Nakagin Capsule Tower (source: Woodysblues)

The Nakagin Capsule Tower was built in a clustered form like boxes stacking on top of each

other. The building was first to rebel against the western modern building because Kisho Kurokawa

wanted to create a building that is flexible and transformable, that represents a unity of all urban

aspects as one big organism. The building was the very representation of the future of Tokyo that Kisho

Kurokawa envisioned and its advancement in technology, society, and culture during that period

(Reflections on the Life of Kiyonori Kikutake / Toyo Ito. 10 Nov 2012).

Figure 7: Axonometric, plan and assembly of the capsule (source: Kisho Kurokawa: Nakagin capsule tower building.

2011)

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The Nakagin Capsule Tower with its given identity as Metabolist architecture still maintains the

traditions of the Japanese culture. The design was based on a Japanese puzzle game that involves the

interwoven wooden blocks. The Nakagin capsule towers were also built, interlocking with each other

which was used to accommodate small families who were still following the traditional rule of family

household. The capsule was constructed for everyday use of a normal person. The idea was based on

the efficiency area of a room in a spacecraft. Each capsule was built to be flexible and to suit users

needs, and was meant to be replaced after 25 years to emphasize on the change and morphology of the

building in the future, a portrayal of a living cell that is decaying and regenerating (Tokyo, Japan. 2011).

The Nakagin Capsule towers’ main purpose was catered to working individuals who had to leave

home and live close to their working place. The era of nomads during the that time where people were

starting to move out from families and living individually. The Capsule Tower was built to accommodate

140 individuals due to the rising population in urban areas and the lack of land and space in the area.

Kisho Kurokawa imagines the future where individuals would live in small spaces which won’t be

clustered and changed altogether, a symbolization of an individual in a large community network

(November 28, 2016).

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6.0 Obstacles in application of Metabolism to the Nakagin Capsule Tower

Figure 8: Nakagin Tower Construction

Principles of the whole idea of Metabolism was about sustainability, exchangeability, and

recyclability. By getting rid of its own outdated parts such a damaged capsule, and replacing it with

better and updated one. This vision was however not accomplished. None of the capsules have been

replaced with upgrades to this day due to the steep cost or replacing them. It was estimated it cost

about $60,000 to replace a single capsule, which cost much more than the cost of demolition and

reconstruction of a capsule. (Figure 8)

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Figure 9: Rotting capsule units in Nakagin Tower

Nakagin Capsule Tower is supposed to adapt to the rapidly changing society around it and sustain daily

human activities, but it could not achieve this goal due to various reasons.

The idea of the Metabolist design of the building has led to various maintenance problems (Figure 9):

Usage of wrong material, Asbestos, which was banned in 1975 due to causing health issues to

humans. It was sprayed and used inside each of the capsules to provide fire protection behind

the walls and on ceilings.

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Water leaks persistently since the 1980s, which have led to rust and corrosion of pipes in the

building. Maintenance is difficult due to the fact that some water pipes cannot be accessed

because of how the capsules are designed.

Due to concerns of the dispersal of asbestos, the central air-conditioning has been out of

service.

The central hot water system is broken and hot water cannot be supplied to the capsules. A

portable shower-unit is situated in the tower’s garage for residents as a replacement.

Some of the round windows in the capsules are fixed and cannot be opened (Windows that can

be opened were an optional extra when the units were new).

Unable to fix problems on the exterior of the building due to accessibility issues. The organic

design has led to issues on accessibility such as in applying scaffolding so as to do repairs on the

exterior of the building.

Unfortunately, in recent years Japanese property owners and developers have proposed an idea of

demolishing Nakagin Capsule Tower and replacing with a new building which could be able to provide

more space than the tower ever could. One of the reason they want to do this is due to its location in

Ginza Tokyo, where the most famous and luxurious shopping zones in the world are located, and has the

most expensive real estate in Japan. It was estimated about 29.6 Japanese Yen (USD 264,000) per square

meter. Thus, the property owners with the desire to maximize the land value by demolishing the capsule

tower and construct a newer building, with more space which could lead to a higher real estate value for

them, thus more profit. Even if it is a post-war Metabolist architecture building with a sensational idea,

the tower could not satisfy the needs of enough space for the people, just like the other Metabolist

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architecture buildings such as Shizuoka Press and Broadcasting Center, Ginza. They often could not meet

the demand of space.

The idea of demolishing the tower might be happening in the coming future since one of the

historic landmark, SONY Building (Figure 10), in Ginza will be demolished in 2017 and will be replacing as

a park with a recreational area which is hardly found in the city.

Nowadays, it is difficult to find Metabolist architecture in the world and Nakagin Capsule Tower

might be experiencing similar problems that all other demolished Metabolist architectures have faced.

Figure 10: SONY Building, Ginza

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7.0 Buildings Influenced by Nakagin Capsule Tower

When people say The Nakagin Capsule Tower was the first building of its kind in the world, they

are not only referring to the Metabolist architecture, but they are also referring it as being the first

capsule building that was ever built. It’s one of the last Metabolist buildings that was built before the

end of the Metabolist movement. This building greatly influenced the architecture of Capsule-hotels,

which are now common in Japan.

Nowadays, many people in Japan who do not require the services offered by more conventional

hotels prefer a cheap capsule hotel which offers a basic overnight accommodation for guests. A capsule

hotel is a type of hotel developed in Japan that features a large number of extremely small "rooms"

(capsules) which were influenced by The Nakagin Capsule Tower.

Figure 11: Capsule in Osaka (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsule_hotel)

The most common facilities inside the capsule mostly are a television, an electronic console, and

wireless internet connection. The capsules usually are stacked side-by-side, two units high. To access to

the second level rooms, the hotel usually provides a step between the rooms on the first level. For

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privacy, the open end of the capsule can be closed with a curtain or a fibreglass door. Inside the capsule

there is a locker to store a luggage and washrooms in the hotel are communal.

The advantage of these hotels is that they are convenient and cheap to stay in, usually around

¥2000-4000 (USD 17-33) a night. Especially on weeknights, they provide an alternative for those who

may be too drunk to return home safely. As of early 2010, with continued economic recession in Japan,

increasingly more guests, around roughly 30% at the Capsule Hotel Shinjuku 510 in Tokyo, were

unemployed and were renting capsules by the month. Although Western variants known as "pod hotels"

have been developed, with larger accommodations and often private baths, this style of hotel has not

gained wide popularity outside Japan.

Figure 12: A capsule unit room (Source: http://www.yesicanusechopsticks.com/capsule/)

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Figure 13: Luxurious capsules (Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/23/hotels/tokyo-luxury-capsule-hotels/)

Designed by Kisho Kurokawa, the first capsule hotel to open was the Capsule Inn Osaka located

in the Umeda district of Osaka, Japan in 1979. China opened its first capsule hotel in Xi'an in 2012. The

first European capsule hotel opened in Belgium in 2014. Iceland opened the first capsule hostel in

Reykjavik in 2015.

In recent years, Japanese culture has been receiving attention overseas and worldwide. The

capsule hotel, which is very common in Japan has drawn attention and is flourishing in various countries

overseas. When inside the room (capsule), the occupants feel that they are in “Space” and associate it

with science fiction because of the shape of the capsule itself. Some of them even want to buy a capsule

unit for their home because they love it so much. Here are some examples of hotel capsules around the

world are like Yo!Tel (UK) ,Sleepbox Hotel (Russia), THE POD (Singapore) and Xitai Capsule Hotel (China).

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Figure 14: Yo!Tel (UK) ,Sleepbox Hotel (Russia), THE POD (Singapore) and Xitai Capsule Hotel (China) [From Top left

to Bottom Right] (Source: http://capsuleinn.com/en/info/doc03.php)

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8.0 Conclusion

It was the aim of the Metabolists to solve the problem that came with the rapid growth of the

cities ahead of its time. Although most of their projects are conceptual and never came into reality, they

created awareness, both local and international, regarding the limited land, housing shortage, and

unsustainability of urban sprawl. The Nakagin Capsule tower by Kisho Kurokawa as a prototype,

discovered and expanded the ideas of Metabolism, exchangeability, recyclability as the means of

architecture. From the study of Nakagin Capsule tower, we learnt that how cruel the reality can be

towards such a great and innovative idea as this brilliant tower is facing demolition, mainly because of

financial issues. We can say metabolism always exists in architecture as we are always evolving buildings

designs, just like a cell building organs in the body. At the end of the day, their effort has inspired

numerous designers, architects, and planners in the present day to generate new ideas for a better

world.

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9.0 References

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