The Nakagin Capsule Tower is gone. The Gunkan Building in Higashi Shinjuku might soon follow. Kikutake’s Hotel Sofitel Tokyo, another striking relic of the Metabolist era, was demolished in 2016. These icons of the Metabolist movement—once symbols of an adaptive, modular future—are now little more than memories, dismantled in favor of generic urban renewal.
Metabolism imagined cities as living, evolving organisms—an architecture designed to expand, transform, and adapt. But reality had other plans. Prefabrication dreams gave way to maintenance nightmares, and a movement that once embodied Japan’s technological optimism now lingers only in old photographs, archived blueprints, and scattered fragments of concrete and steel.
For me, Metabolist architecture was never just about buildings. It was about a philosophy—of modularity, of impermanence, of structures that could evolve rather than stagnate. These ideas have shaped much of my own artistic approach, from my Derelict/Black series to the evolving modularity of Kura Curiosa.
Recently, I had the chance to collaborate with US artist Jason Lujan on a project that revisits the Nakagin Capsule Tower through a different lens. Using Holga analog photographs I had taken of Nakagin before its demolition, Jason reinterpreted them into a new artwork. As he put it:
"This artwork captures the essence of that philosophy under entirely new circumstances—its once-playful design now frozen in a state of obsolescence. This piece reflects themes of instability, urban abandonment, and the inevitable shift from innovation to deterioration."
This piece was presented last month in Toronto at MKG127 Gallery, standing as a visual eulogy to a future that never quite arrived.
It seems that many people mourn the loss of an architectural dream? Can Metabolism’s vision still inspire something new?
