These capsules were single-person dwellings with beds, bathrooms and wall-units that housed state-of-the-art electronics. Modular units, or capsules, built offsite were then plugged into these central columns in a Lego-like fashion. The structure was made of two incredibly durable central columns that housed all necessary utilities. Kisho Kurokawa’s Nakagin Capsule Tower, located near Shimbashi Station, is the most fully realized example of Metabolism. While these ambitions were perhaps too grand to be realized in any way that would transform Japan, some of their structures were completed, and some are still standing today in Tokyo. Other proposed megastructures included floating cities, underwater residences and super-tall modular towers. The Tokyo Bay plan included blowing up a mountain in Chiba and using the rock to build linear islands across Tokyo Bay stretching from Kanagawa to Chiba. Their manifesto also contained within it several plans for megastructures that seem outlandish even today. Of course this concept never came to fruition. Kisho Kurokawa even went as far as to propose a building which would be built with dynamite in its walls to allow for easy demolition when the structure had finished serving its purpose. Ise Jingu in Mie Prefecture, a shrine that has been rebuilt every 20 years since the 7th century, was a source of inspiration for Tange and the metabolists. Impermanence, which is also deeply ingrained in traditional Japanese architecture and philosophy, was a key part of the Metabolist identity. Modular sections of buildings could easily be expanded, removed or changed to serve alternate purposes that better suited the inhabitants of the structure. Organic growth was closely associated with the concept of modularity. Metabolist structures were frequently designed to incorporate prefabricated modules that could be added to a central structure to expand it. Modularity was one of the most defining features of Metabolism. These reports laid out concepts like modularity, organic growth and impermanence. It was made up of sections titled “Ocean City,” “Space City,” “Towards Group Form” and “Material and Man,” each developed by different architects from the group. In 1960 the Metabolists published their manifesto titled “Metabolism: The Proposals for New Urbanism” for the World Design Conference and it helped establish the group’s goals and identity.
It didn’t spawn as a natural reaction to the nation’s ethos but was rather a calculated answer to the environment in which the Metabolists lived. The Metabolists’ architectural philosophy was deliberate.
Tange worked as a mentor to several other young architects and together they developed the concepts that would make up Metabolism. Metabolism was an architectural movement started by Kenzo Tange in post-war Japan. This is when I discovered Metabolist architecture. I had heard of Japan’s famous capsule hotels, but it wasn’t until I saw Kisho Kurokawa’s Nakagin Capsule Tower that I could attach a real-world structure to the cyberpunk aesthetic the novel develops. While reading William Gibson’s 1984 genre defining cyberpunk novel Neuromancer, images of the novel’s so-called coffin hotels materialized in my mind’s eye.
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