Metabolism

Metabolism was a postwar Japanese architectural movement that fused the idea of large scale architectural megastructures with concepts drawn from organic biological growth, treating buildings and cities as living systems capable of expanding, replacing and renewing their own parts. The architect Kenzo Tange served as the movement's forerunner, mentor and patron, and a group of younger architects and designers he influenced, including Kiyonori Kikutake, Kisho Kurokawa and Fumihiko Maki, drafted the movement's manifesto; the movement received its first international exposure at CIAM's 1959 meeting, where ideas from Tange's MIT studio were tentatively tested. Its best known built example is Kisho Kurokawa's Nakagin Capsule Tower in Ginza, Tokyo, whose design consisted of prefabricated pod like living capsules attached to a central core, individually replaceable or upgradable as the building's needs changed over time. The movement's largest concentration of realized work appeared at the 1970 World Exposition in Osaka, where Tange served as master planner for the entire site while Kikutake and Kurokawa each designed pavilions of their own.