Nakagin Capsule Tower

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Nakagin Capsule Tower
Nakagin Capsule Tower
Basic data
Place: Tokyo , Japan
Construction time : 1970-1972
Status : Built
Architectural style : metabolism
Architect : Kisho Kurokawa
Technical specifications
Height to the top: 54 m
Floors : 13
Building material : Reinforced concrete

The Nakagin Capsule Tower ( Japanese 中 銀 カ プ セ ル タ ワ ー , Nakagin Kapuseru Tawā ; German roughly: "Capsule Tower on the Middle Ginza ") is a residential and office building that the Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa had built in 1972 in the Ginza district of Tokyo .

architecture

film records

The building has 13 floors. Conventional office space was accommodated on the first two floors; 11 floors built around two access cores 140 residential modules. The standardized modules were to come onto the market in large numbers, industrially prefabricated. They are connected to the two main supports with only four bolts, which means that they can be easily separated in order to replace them with more recent models - but this option has not yet been used. They can also be combined to form larger units.

The prefabricated modules or capsules (English: modules or capsules ) measuring 2.3 m x 3.8 m x 2.1 m. Kurokawa points out that this area corresponds to the dimensions of a traditional tea house of four tatami . They function as small residential or office units.

history

With the Nakagin Capsule Tower, the architect Kurokawa answered one of the central demands of metabolism . The standardized residential units suspended in the core should be flexible enough to connect with one another and serve as a construction principle for entire cities. However, this hope was not fulfilled.

After forty years, the tower is in need of major renovation, mainly due to its exposure to asbestos and moisture damage from leaking water pipes. Refurbishment appears uneconomical; a required majority of more than 80% of the community of owners voted in 2007 for demolition and new construction. However, due to the effects of the financial crisis from 2007 onwards , these plans were not feasible.

Since then, a group of residents around Tatsuyuki Maeda have been campaigning for the building to be preserved. The Nakagin Capsule Tower Preservation and Rehabilitation Project carries out public relations work and explains the importance of the building; In addition, a crowdfunding- financed publication was created that provides information about the tower and its residents. The project is also endeavoring to convey capsules for sale to buyers interested in architecture in order to achieve the owner share of at least 20% necessary for a decisive say. In December 2015, the owners' meeting agreed to draw up a report on the earthquake safety of the building in 2016 and to discuss demolition or restoration again on the basis of these findings.

The future of the Nakagin Capsule Tower is therefore still uncertain. A call to make the Nakagin Capsule Tower a world heritage site and thus protect the building did not meet with much response.

In the movie

  • Michael Blackwood : Kisho Kurokawa: From Metabolism to Symbiosis (1993)
  • Jesper Wachtmeister: Kochuu (2003), with Kisho Kurokawa
  • Rima Yamazaki: Japanese Metabolist Landmark on the Edge of Destruction (2010). Interviews with architects and residents of the Nakagin Tower.
  • In Wolverine: Weg des Kriegers (2013) the Nakagin Capsule Tower is a love hotel .

literature

  • Andres Lepik: Skyscraper . Prestel Verlag, Munich 2005, pp. 88-89, ISBN 3-7913-3454-9 .
  • Noritaka Minami: 1972. Nakagin Capsule Tower. Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg and Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-86828-548-2
  • Nakagin Capsule Tower Building Preservation and Restoration Project (Ed.): Nakagin Capsule Tower . Seigetsusha, Tokyo 2015, ISBN 978-4810912883

Web links

Commons : Nakagin Capsule Tower  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Nakagin Capsule Tower: Japanese Metabolist Landmark on the Edge of Destruction. Film by Michael Blackwood Productions (accessed February 5, 2016); Metabolist Landmark on the Edge of Destruction in the Internet Movie Database .
  2. ↑ a b Fate of iconic, deteriorating Ginza Capsule Tower up in air ( Memento from March 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). The Japan News, December 21, 2015.
  3. ^ Nakagin Capsule Tower Building Preservation and Restoration Project (Ed.): Nakagin Capsule Tower. Seigetsusha, Tokyo 2015, ISBN 978-4810912883 .
  4. ↑ Demolition or Survival? A Masterpiece of Experimental Architecture Battles for Its Life in the Heart of Downtown Tokyo ( Memento June 10, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). Ignition.co (accessed February 23, 2016).
  5. ↑ Metabolism to Symbiosis in the Internet Movie Database .
  6. ↑ Kochuu in the Internet Movie Database (English).
  7. ^ The Wolverine film locations. movie-locations.com (accessed September 16, 2015).

Coordinates: 35 ° 39 ′ 56.2 ″  N , 139 ° 45 ′ 48.2 ″  E