Anticlimax

In Lisbon, an exhibition presents daily life inside Kisho Kurokawa’s Nakagin Capsule Tower, one of the most iconic buildings of the 20th Century.

Finding a place to live in Tokyo isn’t easy. Most of the available options are expensive and usually located far from the center.

Typologically, the Nakagin Capsule Tower continues to prove that it makes sense. Designed by Kisho Kurokawa  and built in 1972, it represented  a new typology and a different approach to the idea of urban renewal.

Top and above: “Anticlimax: a report on the Metabolist Dream. Nakagin Capsule Tower, Tokyo 1972-2013”, Palácio Sinel de Cordes, Lisbon, Portugal. Photo Filipe Magalhaes

Nevertheless, forty years later, it is clear that something went wrong along the way. The building is getting emptier and several of the capsules are abandoned, rotten, leaking. Some of the owners want to demolish it; a few offer resistance. Each capsule was supposed to last 20 years but twice the time has passed.

“Anticlimax: a report on the Metabolist Dream. Nakagin Capsule Tower, Tokyo 1972-2013”, Palácio Sinel de Cordes, Lisbon, Portugal. Photo Diogo Lopes

Metabolism’s biggest icon is sick and stands today only as a remembrance of a future that never happened.

Anticlimax is an exhibition about the contemporary routine of a fallen hero. While showing pictures from its current condition, the exhibition intends to illustrate the present daily life of one of the most iconic buildings of the 20th Century.

“Anticlimax: a report on the Metabolist Dream. Nakagin Capsule Tower, Tokyo 1972-2013”, Palácio Sinel de Cordes, Lisbon, Portugal. Photo Filipe Magalhaes

Exhibiting the former metabolist superstar in Portugal is also a provocation.

The layout for the exhibition is a necessary curatorial dead-end. Presenting the building in a traditional way would be conceptually wrong. The exhibition happens in an almost negligent way, reflecting the condition of the building, while bringing its sense of scale and repetition to the Sinel de Cordes Palace.

Approximately 40 people live in the building. Some of them use the capsule as a fixed address, but most use their space as a second address or office. The inhabitants really want to be there. They truly love the building and are attracted by its eccentricity. All the residents have a curious history and the emotional connections are clear.

40 years have passed and the capsules where never replaced, the building proved not to be able to be the future of housing and the collective showed to be more powerful than the individual. The current state of the Nakagin Capsule Tower is probably Kurokawa’s Anticlimax.

“Anticlimax: a report on the Metabolist Dream. Nakagin Capsule Tower, Tokyo 1972-2013”, Palácio Sinel de Cordes, Lisbon, Portugal. Photo Filipe Magalhaes

“Anticlimax: a report on the Metabolist Dream. Nakagin Capsule Tower, Tokyo 1972-2013”, Palácio Sinel de Cordes, Lisbon, Portugal. Photo Filipe Magalhaes

“Anticlimax: a report on the Metabolist Dream. Nakagin Capsule Tower, Tokyo 1972-2013”, Palácio Sinel de Cordes, Lisbon, Portugal. Photo Filipe Magalhaes

“Anticlimax: a report on the Metabolist Dream. Nakagin Capsule Tower, Tokyo 1972-2013”, Palácio Sinel de Cordes, Lisbon, Portugal. Photo Filipe Magalhaes

“Anticlimax: a report on the Metabolist Dream. Nakagin Capsule Tower, Tokyo 1972-2013”, Palácio Sinel de Cordes, Lisbon, Portugal. Photo Filipe Magalhaes

“Anticlimax: a report on the Metabolist Dream. Nakagin Capsule Tower, Tokyo 1972-2013”, Palácio Sinel de Cordes, Lisbon, Portugal. Photo Filipe Magalhaes

“Anticlimax: a report on the Metabolist Dream. Nakagin Capsule Tower, Tokyo 1972-2013”, Palácio Sinel de Cordes, Lisbon, Portugal. Photo Filipe Magalhaes

“Anticlimax: a report on the Metabolist Dream. Nakagin Capsule Tower, Tokyo 1972-2013”, Palácio Sinel de Cordes, Lisbon, Portugal. Photo Filipe Magalhaes