A unique building will disappear from the Tokyo landscape in Japan.It is a duo of towers erected in the early 1970s.It consists of housing which are in fact prefabricated rectangular boxes, which are called capsules.
140 capsules of 2.5 meters by 4 stack on each other to form two towers of ten and eleven levels.Each capsule is, in itself, accommodation, with a door and a porthole, mainly intended to serve as auxiliary accommodation for frequent passage employees in Tokyo.They are completely furnished with original, in the style of the time, a little kitsch, with a lit-sofa, storage, a table that unfolds, a TV, a telephone, a built-in hi-fi chain, and aSmall bathroom-toilet.
""Good as a foot on the ground""
This concept, signed Kisho Kurokawa, an architect who died in 2007, belongs to the so -called metabolist current.But he is condemned to disappear.Unique in their kind, the Nakagin towers, are being demolished after years of efforts in vain on the part of the fans to save them.""During the construction, the interest was immense, recalls an admirer, who came to make the latest photos.Recently, the media are talking about it because of the demolition, so this tower is interested again, but it was no longer well known except by architecture lovers.In the photos, the interior is really small, even if in pictures it seems spacious.It was good as a foot on the ground "".
However, these towers constitute a jewel of architecture.But the Japanese authorities do not give the recent architectural heritage the same importance as we might have done in France.Initially planned, the renovation of the boxes every 25 years has not been made and the building fell into a state of dilapidation which leaves little choice than the demolition.An antisism standards, for example, would be far too expensive.Fans deplore him.""I would have liked this tower to be saved, but there are problems of co -ownership, safety, costs,"" admits one of them.""It is true that the building is old now, also recognizes an admirer of Kisho Kurokawa.Demolition is one thing, but it would be nice that we can always see a game somewhere "".
""I heard that capsules were going to be exposed in museums.""
in Franceinfo
Consolation will therefore be to see these capsules in art and architecture museums here and there, perhaps even one day in Paris.But it will never have the same visual impact as the towers themselves.
