Nakagin Capsule Tower: Japanese Metabolist Landmark on the Edge of Destruction



2010
53 minutes
Japanese with English subtitles

Distributor: Michael Blackwood Productions Inc.










The Nakagin Capsule Tower, designed by Kisho Kurokawa and completed in 1972, is an exemplary work of post-war Japanese architectural movement Metabolism. Today, however, this historic building is in danger of demolition. Why do we need to preserve a building? What are the difficulties of preservation? Is demolition a tragedy or a natural phenomenon for modern architecture? Tracing the history of postwar Japanese architecture and reviewing the characteristics of the Nakagin Capsule Tower, this documentary examines the meaning of preservation and demolition from various points of view. The documentary includes interviews with residents of the Nakagin Capsule Tower, an architectural historian, a former Kurokawa office architect who was in charge of the Nakagin Capsule Tower project, Kurokawa’s son, and leading architects Arata Isozaki and Toyo Ito.




Selected Film Festivals & Screenings

2015
Milano Design Film Festival in Seoul (Seoul, Korea)
UrbanEye Film Festival (Bucharest, Romania)
Doku Arts 2015 (Berlin, Germany)
Canadian Centre for Architecture (Montreal, Canada)

2014
Milano Design Film Festival (Milan, Italy)
Milano Design Film Festival in Venice (Venice, Italy)
The 6th Budapest Architecture Film Days (Budapest, Hungary)

2012
Center for Architecture (New York, NY, USA)

2011
TEMPS D'IMAGES PRÉMIOS DE CINEMA para FILMES SOBRE ARTE (Lisbon, Portugal)
Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam (Rotterdam, Netherlands)
International Festival of Films on Art, Horizons section (Montreal, Canada)
Jaroslav Fragner Gallery (Prague, Czech Republic)

2010
DOC FEST (Rome, Italy)



Press

Review: Nakagin Capsule Tower: Japanese Metabolist Landmark on the Edge of Destruction Nakagin Capsule Tower:
Japanese Metabolist Landmark on the Edge of Destruction by Rima Yamazaki, director

by Nicholas Risteen. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 73, No. 4. (December 2014)






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