One year after its dismantlement and a half century since rising high in Tokyo's Ginza district, the innovative Nakagin Capsule Tower is refusing to go quietly into the annals of architectural history. 

Made up of numerous separable apartment modules that create a unique eye-catching appearance, the structure is getting a new lease on life in and outside Japan.

The tower, designed by globally renowned architect Kisho Kurokawa (1934-2007), was torn down last year.

One of the former apartment units was installed in front of the Museum of Modern Art, Wakayama in late August.

There, the former house showcases its pure white exterior design resembling that of a marine shipping container.

Visitors to the museum are constantly seen curiously peering through a round window 1 meter in diameter into the apartment.

Its interior reminds one of a spacecraft with no decorative fittings.

A TV, a refrigerator and a large bed are housed in the tiny 10-square-meter space. The audio system on display uses a Sony Corp. tape recorder, as the product was the most high tech product of its kind in the day.

The apartment unit is furnished with a modular bath. But there are no kitchen facilities within.

“An answer to the question of what is most necessary for human life is fully presented there,” said curator Yoshiko Inoue, 55.

The apartment room exhibited at the museum formerly was part of the Nakagin Capsule Tower.

The tower was erected in 1972 by piling up a total of 140 residential capsules. It was dismantled in 2022 due to the building’s age and other reasons.

The structure is deemed as especially significant because it is believed to exemplify the core idea of the Metabolism movement.

The architectural campaign was mounted by Kurokawa and others, insisting that buildings should replace their components and functions for growth in line with the changes in their usage and the trend of the times such as in living organisms’ metabolism.

Driven by the notion, the Nakagin Capsule Tower was constructed in a way that its apartments can be removed for relocation and replacement.

Capsules, however, had never been transferred or exchanged until it was dismantled five decades after its installation.

Seeking to take full advantage of 23 rooms in relatively good condition via renovation, the Nakagin Capsule Tower Preservation and Restoration Project was launched in 2014 by the apartments’ owners and residents.

Kisho Kurokawa Architect & Associates, based in Tokyo, worked with the project toward the apartments’ restoration as well.

It proposed that one of the units be set up on the grounds of the Museum of Modern Art, Wakayama. The exhibition facility is among a trove of designs done by Kurokawa.

The establishment’s operator willingly accepted the offer.

“It is wonderful that a capsule was actually taken away and brought to Wakayama for the first time 50 years following the tower’s introduction,” Inoue said.

“Mr. Kurokawa took into account future lifestyles and circumstances in cities and nations among other perspectives to consider architecture. The capsule vividly represents the origin of his style, providing a fresh opportunity for visitors to see it firsthand at another Kurokawa-designed facility.”

METABOLISM SPREADING IN JAPAN, ABROAD

Capsules are finding second lives not only in Japan but also overseas.

Headquartered in Osaka, Yodogawa Steel Works Ltd. revived an apartment unit in April while adding a new twist: it was turned into a trailer with wheels.

The traveling Nakagin Capsule has been towed by a vehicle to visit display sites in Nagoya and Osaka Prefecture. It is currently being shown in a factory in Chiba Prefecture for the company’s patrons to take a glance at the former apartment.

Entertainment firm Shochiku Co. in Tokyo’s Chuo Ward incorporated two apartment rooms into its art center.

They were transported to a multipurpose exhibition area beside Shochiku’s main office building in early October. One was reinstalled with no changes made to its interior, while the other’s furnishings were removed from the inside.

The displayed capsules are expected to be utilized for art exhibitions and other events.

A housing capsule has already left Japan for the United States in the possibility of finding a new home at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Tatsuyuki Maeda, 56, head of the Nakagin Capsule Tower Preservation and Restoration Project, said almost 200 inquiries came in from both in and outside Japan over the fate of apartments separated from one another.

Agreements have since been reached to send some units to European and other Asian countries for display.

“We will be able to convey the Capsule Tower’s concept envisioned by Kisho Kurokawa to people all over the world,” said Maeda. “This is a kind of miracle that can be done only by this structure.”