Originally published at: Capsule apartment from Tokyo's iconic tower acquired by San Francisco Museum of Modern Art | Boing Boing
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Reminds me of Bruce Willis’ place in The Fifth Element.
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That’s a great ending for the unique building. I’d love to visit the restored interior in person.
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…If the 5th element had been a Kubric student film on a shoestring budget, inspired by staring blankly at a front-load washing machine.
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An idea not without its charm …
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This was one of Chris Broad’s favorite Japanese buildings, he was disappointed to see it go.
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That might have been the inspiration for it, perhaps.
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I’m confused about the reel-to-reel tape player as a consumer need in compact housing in 80s Japan. The all-Sony, clean installation suggests that it wasn’t a personal upgrade but was there a deluxe capsule model?
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I am so, so, SO gutted I never had the chance to visit and tour the building (thanks Covid!)
Lisa Knight had some great posts about the tower:
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Insert obligatory “still bigger than my flat” comment.
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The tower was built in the early 1970s. If Wikipedia is correct, every capsule originally had a reel-to-reel deck.
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The interior of the Pod is larger than I expected. Neat.
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I dunno. I wasn’t familiar with this building, but when I read about it here the first thing that came to mind was Peter Blake’s critique of Le Corbusier’s Radiant City plan of the 1920s. His main complaint was that Le Corbusier’s utopia was based on fitting people to the architecture rather than the other way around. Le Corbusier was inspired by the efficiency of the steamship stateroom to propose reducing personal space to a compact unit much like these capsules, primarily used for sleeping and bathing, in a giant high-rise situated on open green space. Recreation and dining were to take place in community areas. Blake bemoaned the total separation of people and earth. Though the Radiant City stood on wide open spaces not even the buildings touched the ground (they were raised on columns). The residents became visitors to their own planet.
The Capsule Tower was no Radiant City but it followed a similar path, prioritizing efficiency and service to the architectural model. I would not have cared to live there.
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… did Marcel Duchamp put his own name on it yet?
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