Nakagin Capsule Tower

The Nakagin Capsule Tower was a mixed residential and office building in the Ginza district of Tokyo, designed by Kisho Kurokawa and completed in 1972 as a built example of the Japanese Metabolism movement. The building consisted of 140 prefabricated steel capsules, each about 2.5 by 2.5 by 4 meters with a single circular window, bolted onto two reinforced concrete cores and intended to be unbolted and replaced individually as they aged, a demonstration of Metabolism's idea of architecture as a living, renewable organism. In practice the capsules were never replaced, and the building deteriorated over five decades without the maintenance its design assumed. It was demolished in 2022, though 23 of its capsules were removed intact and distributed to museums including MoMA in New York and SFMOMA.