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Inflection Journal
Volume 04 - Permanence
November 2017
Inflection is published annually by the Melbourne School of Design at the
University of Melbourne and AADR: Art Architecture Design Research.
Editors:
Dominic On, Jessica Wood, Nina Tory-Henderson and Stephen Yuen
Deputy Editors:
Catherine Woo and Olivia Potter
Academic Advisor:
Dr. AnnMarie Brennan
Academic Advisory Board:
Dr. AnnMarie Brennan
Prof. Alan Pert
Prof. Gini Lee
Acknowledgements:
The editors would like to thank all those involved in the production
of this journal for their generous assistance and support.
For all enquiries please contact:
editorial@inflectionjournal.com
inflectionjournal.com
facebook.com/inflectionjournal/
instagram.com/inflectionjournal/
© Copyright 2017
ISSN 2199-8094
ISBN 978-3-88778-520-8
AADR – Art, Architecture and Design Research publishes research with
an emphasis on the relationship between critical theory and creative
practice.
AADR Curatorial Editor: Rochus Urban Hinkel, Stockholm
Production: pth-mediaberatung GmbH, Würzburg
Publication © by Spurbuchverlag 1. Print run 2017
Am Eichenhügel 4, 96148 Baunach, Germany.
Graphic design in collaboration with Büro North Interdisciplinary Design
No part of the work must in any mode (print, photocopy,
microfilm, CD or any other process) be reproduced nor – by
application of electronic systems – processed, manifolded nor
broadcast without approval of the copyright holder.
The opinions expressed in Inflection are those of the
authors and are not endorsed by the University of Melbourne.
Cover Image:
Wrecking the Seat of Learning
Argus Newspaper Collection of
Photographs, State Library of
Victoria
*denotes articles that have been formally peer-reviewed
06
10
18
32
44
54
Editorial
Barnaby Bennett
Breaking and
Making Temporality
Kaylene Tan
Unfinished: Brutalist
Heritage in the Making
Tod Williams and Billie Tsien
On Slowness
Amelyn Ng
Illusions of Freedom
Christine Bjerke
Dual-Living: The
Digitalisation of
Domestic Space
Dan Hill
On Systems
Christof Mayer
Cui Bono? The City as a
Product of Societal
Negotiation
Tanja Beer*
The Aesthetics of
Impermanence
Eleni Bastéa
The Memory of Loss
Jessica Wood
MPavilion: Catalyst
or Cat's Paw?
Aki Ishida
Metabolic Impermanence:
The Nakagin Capsule Tower 98
108
116
12664
68
74
78 Elizabeth Diller
On Obsolescence
Casey Mack
Future Stock
Toby Dean
The Reassembled Town Hall
Sean Anderson
On Imagined Placelessness
88
132
CONTENTS
32
Inflection
Metabolic Impermanence
Aki Ishida
THE NAKAGIN CAPSULE TOWER
METABOLIC
IMPERMANENCE
When a building is designed with intentional impermanence,
its historic preservation presents a paradox. First completed
in 1972, the Nakagin Capsule Tower by Kisho Kurokawa
is such a structure. As The New York Times critic Nicolai
Ouroussoff wrote in 2009, ‘The Capsule Tower is not only
gorgeous architecture; like all great buildings, it is the
crystallisation of a far-reaching cultural ideal. Its existence
also stands as a powerful reminder of paths not taken, of
the possibility of worlds shaped by different sets of values.’1
In the Metabolist spirit of continual growth, the architect
designed the capsule living units to be replaced every 25
to 35 years, whilst the concrete cores were estimated to
last over 60 years.2 The shorter lifespan of the capsules was
intended to reflect anticipated societal change, rather than
material aging.3 However, in the 45 years since its completion
no replacement has taken place. Today, the tower faces
the alternatives of preservation, alteration or demolition.
If the design’s central idea has not been executed half a
century later, how do we justify its future, either through
restoration as a cultural monument, or demolition to make
way for new structures and ideologies? Moreover, when a
work of architecture is built upon principles of growth and
transformation over time, what are the implications for its
preservation?
Vol 04 Permanence
33
Nakagin Capsule Tower, Axonometric.
Drawing by © KISHO KUROKAWA architect &
associates
Opposite: Nakagin Capsule Tower, level 5
floor plan.
Drawing by © KISHO KUROKAWA architect &
associates
Following page: Under construction.
Photograph by Tomio Ohashi
© KISHO KUROKAWA architect & associates
34
Inflection
Metabolic Impermanence
Nakagin Capsule Tower
Kurokawa’s Nakagin Tower consists of two reinforced
concrete and steel frame cores, to which 140 capsule units
are attached with high-tensile steel bolts.4 Prefabricated
by a railroad car manufacturer, each module consists of
a bathroom unit, circular window, built-in furniture and
appliances. Each capsule is individually anchored to the
concrete shaft, so that it might be replaced without affecting
the others.5 The small living spaces, designed primarily for
lounging and sleeping, are minimally equipped with a bed,
bathroom, refrigerator and sink.6 The entire construction
took only one year, with all 140 units sold by the time of
completion.7 The units were originally owned by companies
who used them as temporary housing for travelling
employees, as business offices or investments.
Kurokawa’s Metabolist philosophy was motivated by his
criticism of Japan’s pre-war modernisation: westernisation
based on industrialisation. The two pillars of the Metabolist
movement were to resist the course of cultural evolution
based on Western values and to seek out a contemporary
language for architecture specific to Japanese culture.8
Kurokawa criticised those who tried to resuscitate and imitate
ancient Japanese structures during World War I colonisation
and the period following World War II. He argued for defining
the present, not the past, as the backbone of Japanese
culture.9
Foundations of Metabolist Philosophy
A building designed with intentional impermanence requires
an understanding of the life-death cycle that is specific to the
culture of its place. The Metabolist philosophy is founded in
Japanese thinking, both ancient and modern, and the idea of
constant renewal is deeply rooted in the Buddhist religion.
Kurokawa wrote extensively on the paradoxical Japanese
practice of achieving permanence through impermanence,
embodied in the predominantly light-weight timber
construction used throughout Japan. He writes that because
most important Japanese buildings are timber, they are
accepting of their own entropy; buildings participate in the
Buddhist idea of rinne—the on-going cycle of life and death.10
Moreover, the Buddhist idea of muso holds that ‘human beings
should not become too attached to any one idea or place but
should always remain aware of being in eternal time.’
Kurokawa’s position on impermanence also has a foundation
in his youth spent in war-torn Japan. In a 2005 interview with
Rem Koolhaas, Kurokawa recalled witnessing his hometown
of Nagoya, a city of 1.5 million, destroyed overnight by
hundreds of bombers.11 Witnessing his city vanish in an
instant impressed the impermanence of all things upon the
young architect, including cities and architecture. Following
the devastating losses in the war, Kurokawa continued to look
to iconic buildings in traditional Japanese architecture studied
by the imperialist architects of their fathers’ generation.
However, the Metabolists did so in ways which were
fundamentally different from the previous generation.
The Metabolists were seeking modernity in philosophy,
not in style. Unlike the visually dominant traditions of the
West, they sought the invisible by looking to venerable
architectural practices of the past such as the Ise Shrine
(680 AD) and Katsura Palace (1620 AD). Here they found the
notions of impermanence and prefabrication that they then
transposed into their own practice.12 Kurokawa says, “We are
talking about Ise as an invisible continuity: every 20 years
the visible—the architecture—is rebuilt. We say the tradition
has been maintained for 1,200 years, though the material
is always new”.13 He writes, ‘… the Japanese have never felt
that the materials themselves have a sense of eternity. On
the contrary, they are and always have been conscious of the
spirit and philosophy beyond the materials and regard the
form as an intermediary conveying that spirit and philosophy
of human beings.’14 Similarly, the Katsura was expanded
twice over 150 years using different modules for each phase,
and that at each stage it was considered a beauty, ‘perfect
as a constantly changing process.’15 The Palace embodied
metabolic ideas of cyclical growth over time which made
it an apt precedent for the Metabolist manifesto. Where
Western culture might retain the very blocks of stone with
which ancient temples were built, Japanese culture views the
permanence of an artefact as secondary to the process of craft
passed on for generations.16 This attitude is even evidenced
in the Japanese laws which protect cultural properties such
as manners and customs, and in the designation of the title
‘National Living Treasure’ to a living person practicing a
craft such as noh theatre or pottery. Thus, the question of
preserving the Nakagin Capsule Tower demands a culture-
specific examination of permanence.
Vol 04 Permanence
35
36
Inflection
Metabolic Impermanence
Top: Nakagin Tower in 1972. Photograph
by Tomio Ohashi
© KISHO KUROKAWA architect & associates
Opposite: Nakagin Tower façade today.
Photograph by Nicholas Coates
Vol 04 Permanence
37
38
Inflection
Metabolic Impermanence
The Debate
For a building as radical in concept and form as the Nakagin
Capsule Tower, its life of 47 years is already “a miracle,” in the
words of Arata Isozaki.17 Nonetheless, the building’s failure to
uphold its philosophy of continual change and growth makes
its preservation controversial. With the aging of the Tower,
the question of replacement or demolition was no surprise to
its architect. Since 1998, Kisho Kurokawa and his associates
had been devising plans to update the Tower. In accordance
with his philosophy of permanent impermanence, the office
made elaborate schemes to replace the capsules and the
by-now dangerously corroded steel connection bolts whilst
repairing and preserving the concrete cores. The tower's
outward appearance would remain consistent with the
original design, the capsules would not be exact replicas of
the 1972 model. Rather, Kurokawa wanted “to see new ones
built to the same design, but incorporating new technologies
like renewable energies and broadband.”18
The Tower’s preservation was widely supported by the
international architecture community. In February 2005,
World Architecture News (WAN) published their poll of
over 10,000 architects in 100 countries. The results were
overwhelmingly in favour of saving the Tower: 75 percent
favoured maintaining the core and replacing the capsules, 20
percent supported restoration to its original condition and
five percent voted for total demolition. Many argued that
the core concept of the structure should be honoured, the
capsules replaced and the Tower restored as an example of
the Metabolist movement.19
However, it is a different story outside the global architecture
community. On April 15 2007, 80 percent of the capsule unit
owners voted in favour of demolition and replacement with
a more profitable building. This plan would give each capsule
owner more than double the space for the same price as
rebuilding the original design.20 Consequently in 2005, at the
age of 71, Kurokawa launched a passionate campaign to save
the Nakagin Tower.21 The architect garnered support world-
wide, but died two years later. By this time, development of
the new tower had stalled for multiple reasons: the economic
recession of the late 2000s, the public’s suspicion of post-war
architecture and the general lack of interest in housing invest-
ments.22 In 2013, there were only 10 to 15 people living in the
Tower, whilst the rest were abandoned.23 More recently, advo-
cates for the preservation of the Tower have been purchasing
units one by one, including architect Masato Abe who rents
his unit on Airbnb to tourists and architecture enthusiasts.24
With an increase in the number of unit owners who support
restoration, construction of an entirely new building may
now face significant opposition.25
Reasons for Resistance
Additional factors stand in the way of the Tower’s
preservation. The original construction cost of each capsule
was US $4,500.26 Shortly before his death in 2007, Kurokawa’s
office estimated the replacement cost to be as high as
$80,000. In 1972, the structure stood prominently as the
tallest building for blocks around. Today, other buildings
encroach tightly on three sides with an elevated highway on
the fourth, excessively increasing the cost of replacing the
capsules by crane.
The Tower also stands on prime Tokyo real estate. On average,
the construction cost of a building in Tokyo accounts for
a tenth of its land value, a statistic which highlights the
inclination for Japan’s scrap-and-build mentality.27 Moreover,
the building management firm, Nakagin, faces complicated
security and utility billing challenges with the building’s
multiple functions of apartment, office and informal hotel.
The building is no longer watertight and no longer has
running hot water. Many abandoned capsules have mouldy
and compromised ceilings and walls, and make-shift
waterproofing contraptions made from plastic bags and tubes
are common sights.28 The capsule walls are thin with limited
asbestos insulation, making them hot in the summer and cold
in the winter, and with no operable windows, the capsules are
completely dependent on mechanical systems.29
Capsule as Mobile Cyborg
In a manner characteristic of Kurokawa, his design looked
to the future whilst considering Japan’s past. The Nakagin
capsules were designed in tatami module proportions of
2.5 metres by 4 metres. As Charles Jencks points out in his
introduction to Kurokawa’s book Metabolism in Architecture,
the capsules embody futuristic technology and ideas in the
proportions of traditional Japanese space. In his 1969 ‘Capsule
Declaration,’ Kurokawa included images of traditional
Japanese kago: small palanquins strung from a pole carried
by two people, which he called ‘capsules.’30 He declared that
in the future, a human’s status will be measured by mobility
rather than plot size.31 In his 1969 essay 'Homo Movens', he
sketched connections back to the tradition of agricultural
workers who travelled from villages to urban areas in the
winter, dwelling in seasonal homes. 32 He believed that this
mobile mode of living would become increasingly central to
Japan’s urban life. Now, 45 years later, Japan does not value
such mobility, at least not in the ways he imagined.
Capsule interior, 1972.
Drawing by © KISHO KUROKAWA architect & associates
Vol 04 Permanence
39
40
Inflection
Metabolic Impermanence
To Kurokawa, the capsule was an approach to housing rooted
in the idea of humanity's co-existence with technology.
‘The capsule is cyborg architecture ... As a human being
equipped with a man-made internal organ becomes a new
species which is neither machine nor human, so the capsule
transcends man and equipment.’ He likens his capsule to a
spaceship—a container that would be meaningless without
an astronaut inside, and vice versa.33 The term ‘cyborg’ was
coined in 1960 by scientist Manfred Clynes as a portmanteau
of cybernetic and organism. According to Clynes, a cyborg
‘incorporates exogenous components extending the self-
regulatory control function of the organism in order to adapt
it to new environments.’ He imagined astronauts as cyborgs
equipped with machines to withstand the harsh environment
of outer space.34 NASA’s A7L Apollo and Skylab spacesuit,
worn on the moon by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in
1968, was produced by the manufacturers of the Playtex Bra
and Girdle Company. Soft, multi-layered and built for comfort
in the harshest environment, the astronauts depended on
the technologies of their spacesuit for survival.35 Although
equipped with advanced domestic electronics of the day, the
capsules did not coexist synergistically with their human
occupants as cyborgs. Instead of comfortably cushioning
and protecting their bodies like a spacesuit, the capsules
lacked sufficient ventilation, insulation and waterproofing.
Therefore, the abandoned state of the capsules have caused
them to become spaceships without astronauts.
Preservation and Intended Impermanence
The argument for the demolition of The Nakagin Capsule
Tower may seem equally convincing as that for its
preservation. This polarity is reflected in the positions of
two prominent contemporary Japanese architects. Arata
Isozaki, who is strongly associated with the Metabolists yet
not a member, believes in preservation on the grounds of
its cultural significance.36 In contrast, Toyo Ito, who started
his office as the dreams of Metabolism began to wane, sees
architecture as living matter and finds difficulty in justifying
the preservation of a building that no longer functions as it
should.36 Whilst its cultural significance may be indisputable,
a careful examination of the forces against traditional
Western preservation makes Ito’s position compelling.
Preservationist and architect Jorge Otero-Pailos references
the idea of the ‘fourth dimension’ of architecture, which
is not merely time but ‘the process, whereby preservation
supplements architectural form in time, helping buildings
achieve the cultural significance that they should, but
for whatever reason, couldn’t on their own.’ We speak of
buildings as living and surviving ‘on their own,’ but as
with humans, the permanence of a building is dependent
upon multiple external factors including maintenance,
the architect’s design for its aging or evolution over time,
property values and financial resources to preserve or
reconstruct.38 For a work of architecture to be deemed worthy
of preservation for its cultural value, it requires the architect,
the owner and the city to actively participate in the building’s
continuous adaptation. Abandoned by the client, its capsules
too cramped for living and situated on a plot targeted for
a new development, the Nakagin Capsule Tower no longer
participates in the metabolic processes of a contemporary
city. When a building designed as a living organism no longer
supports the life of those who live inside, an argument for
the Tower’s reconstruction appears unconvincing; to impose
living in a reconstructed monument would be contrary to the
Metabolic principle.
Learning from the Debate
The debate over the future of Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower
suggests a need for a culturally specific approach to the
preservation of architecture. As a building embedded in the
Japanese principle of permanence through impermanence,
the Tower’s situation calls for a re-examination of Katsura’s
expansion and Ise’s ritualistic renewal. These two buildings
and the Tower’s fate may offer architects a middle way: for
the design of buildings which incorporate from the outset
a process of renewal and growth over their lifespans. Seen
in this light, the Nakagin Capsule Tower and Metabolist
philosophy might offer a different approach to the notion of
sustainability—not of form or materials alone, but of ideas
that sustain culture and the buildings which house it. The
Tower offers an alternative metaphorical understanding
of ‘renewable’ and ‘sustainable’ architecture. A building
that accommodates a ritualistic replacement of selected
parts could better anticipate continual changes in societal
contexts, materials and technologies than its more permanent
counterparts.
Vol 04 Permanence
41
Top: Capsule interior, 1972. Photograph
by Tomio Ohashi
© KISHO KUROKAWA architect & associates
Following page: Nakagin Tower today.
Photograph by Nicholas Coates
42
Inflection
Metabolic Impermanence
Vol 04 Permanence
43
01 Nicolai Ouroussoff, “Future Vision Vanished to
the Past,”
The New York Times
, July 6, 2009,
accessed February 25, 2015, http://www.nytimes.
com/2009/07/07/arts/design/07capsule.html.
02 Kisho Kurokawa, ‘Challenge to the Capsule:
Nakagin Capsule Tower Building,’
Japan Architect
47 (October 1972): 17.
03 Ibid.
04 Sayaka Nakamura (of Kisho Kurokawa architect and
associates), e-mail message to author, May 11,
2017.
05 Hiroshi Watanabe, “Evaluation: composition of
cubes in Tokyo,”
AIA Journal
69, no. 12 (1980):
74-77.
06 Nakamura, e-mail message to author.
07 Zhongjie Lin, “Nakagin Capsule Tower: revisiting
the future of the recent past,”
Journal of
Architectural Education
65, no. 1 (2011): 13-32.
08 Kisho Kurokawa, “Grave-Post of Contemporary
Architecture,”
Space Design
163 (1978): 3-6.
09 Ibid.
10 Kurokawa,
Metabolism in Architecture
, 35.
11 Ibid.
12 Rem Koolhaas and Hans Ulrich Obrist,
Project
Japan: Metabolism Talks
(Köln: Taschen GmbH,
2011), 385-391.
13 Ibid., 379.
14 Kurokawa,
Metabolism in Architecture
, 32.
15 Koolhaas,
Project Japan
, 379.
16 Yoichiro Hakamori, “The Sacred and the Profane in
Matsuri Structures,”
Matsuri! Japanese Festival
Arts
, ed. Gloria Gonick (Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler
Museum of Cultural History, 2002), 77-95.
17
Nakagin Capsule Tower: Japanese Metabolist
Landmark on the Edge of Destruction
, directed by
Rima Yamazaki (Michael Blackwood Productions,
2011), DVD.
18 Jan-Carlos Kucharek, “Pod cast: Nakagin Capsule
Tower, Japan,”
RIBA Journal
114, no. 4 (2007):
63-64.
19 “Nakagin Tower dilemma,”
World Architecture
News
,
September 23, 2005, accessed February 25,
2015, http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/
project/2005/126/wan-editorial/nakagin-capsule-
tower-in-tokyo.html?q=nakagin%20capsule.
20 Yuki Solomon, “Kurokawa’s Capsule Tower To Be
Razed,”
Architectural Record
, April 30, 2007, accessed
July 30, 2015, http://archrecord.construction.
com/news/daily/archives/070430kurokawa.asp.
21 Nakamura, e-mail message to author.
22 Ouroussoff, “Future Vision Vanished to the Past”
23 Filipe Magalhães and Ana Luisa Soares, “The
Metabolist Routine,”
Domus: Blog
,
May 29, 2013,
accessed May 31, 2015, http://www.domusweb.it/en/
architecture/2013/05/29/the_metabolist_routine.
html.
24 Katie Forster, “Tokyo’s tiny capsules of
architectural flair,”
Japan Times
, October
3, 2014, accessed May 31, 2015,http://www.
japantimes.co.jp/culture/2014/10/03/arts/tokyos-
tiny-capsules-architectural-flair/#.VD3Y-CldUpw.
25
MotionGallery Nakagin Capsule Tower Preservation/
Restoration Project
, 2015, accessed August 31,
2015, https://motion-gallery.net/users/42781/
creations.
26 Watanabe, “Evaluation,” 76.
27 Bognar Botond, “What Goes Up, Must Come Down,”
Harvard Design Magazine
,
no. 3 (1997).
28 Based on the author’s stay at unit 907B through
Airbnb on in July 9, 2014.
29 Watanabe, “Evaluation,” 76.
30 Charles Jencks,
introduction to
Metabolism in
Architecture
by Kisho Kurokawa (Boulder: Westview
Press: 1977): 8-22.
31 Kurokawa,
Metabolism in Architecture
, 78.
32 Ibid., 105.
33 Ibid., 75.
34 Ronald Kline, “Where are the Cyborgs in
Cybernetics?,”
Social Studies of Science
39, no.
3 (June 2009): 332, accessed March 26, 2017,
http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.vt.edu/stable/
pdf/27793297.pdf.
35 Nicholas de Monchaux, “Space Suit and the City,”
Log, Aftershocks: Generation(s) since 1968
, no.
13/14
(Fall 2008): 101-114, accessed March 26,
2017, http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.vt.edu/
stable/pdf/41765235.pdf.
36
Nakagin Capsule Tower
DVD.
37 Ibid.
38 Rem Koolhaas et al.,
Preservation is Overtaking
Us
(New York: GSAPP Books, 2014), 98.
