Nakagin Capsule Tower: a future that didn’t last
The rise and fall of a modular living experiment
Melis Canli
10 September 2026
Completed in 1972 in Tokyo, the Nakagin Capsule Tower was one of the most radical experiments in modern housing. Designed by Kisho Kurokawa, the building embodied the ideas of the Metabolist movement, which imagined architecture as flexible and replaceable rather than permanent.











M. John Harrison



