Tokyo’s Iconic Nakagin Capsule Tower to be Demolished
One of Japan’s most distinctive works of contemporary architecture, the Nakagin Capsule Tower in Tokyo, will be demolished this month, according to the building’s new owners.
The decision ends years of uncertainty surrounding the eye-catching structure, which once offered a futuristic vision of urban living but had recently fallen into disrepair.
Completed in 1972, the tower comprises 144 factory-built units arranged around two concrete cores. Each 10-square-meter (108-square-foot) “capsule” features a porthole-style window, with appliances and furniture built into the structure of each home.
The building is considered a prime example of Metabolism, an architectural movement that emerged from the ruins of World War II with a radical new vision for Japan’s cities. As well as embracing technology and mass production, the avant-garde group’s members looked to nature for inspiration, with structural components treated like organic cells that could be “plugged” into a larger whole or later replaced.
The building’s designer, Kisho Kurokawa – one of Metabolism’s youngest adherents – had originally envisaged the Tokyo tower’s capsules being replaced every 25 years. But they instead grew dilapidated and outdated, with many of the apartments now sitting empty, used for storage and office space, or rented out to architecture enthusiasts on a short-term basis.
In 2007, the owners’ association voted to sell the tower to a property developer that intended to demolish and replace it. But the firm filed for bankruptcy during the 2008 recession, and the site’s fate was thrown into years-long limbo.
Owners again agreed to sell in 2021, and the building was acquired by a group of real estate firms operating under the name Capusule Tower Building (CTB). A spokesperson for the joint venture, Takashi Shindo, said over the phone that the last residents moved out last month, with demolition scheduled to begin April 12.
Preservationists had long expressed hope that the building might be saved – including Kurokawa, before his death in 2007. Petitions and campaigns have called for the structure to be protected as an example of Japan’s architectural heritage.
Although the Metabolism movement proved influential, very few of its proposals were ever realized, making Nakagin Capsule Tower a rare living example of the group’s philosophy.
The organization behind the conservation campaign, the Nakagin Capsule Tower Building Preservation and Regeneration Project, asked city authorities to intervene – and even considered applying for protected status with UNESCO. But neither approach proved successful, according to project member Tatsuyuki Maeda, who acquired 15 of the capsules between 2010 and the building’s sale last year.
“Japan does not have the legislation to preserve this kind of architectural culture,” he said over the phone. “It is unfortunate that one of the country’s most representative examples of modern architectural heritage will be lost.”
This ‘zero waste’ Japanese building is made from 700 donated windows
Maeda said that efforts to raise the 2 to 3 billion yen ($16 million to $24 million) required to renovate the tower and remove asbestos were hampered by the Covid-19 pandemic. The project has since shifted focus towards raising funds to refurbish and repurpose individual units in the hope that institutions might look to acquire “unplugged” capsules.
Maeda said the project has received around 80 inquiries, with the Centre Pompidou in Paris among the museums to have expressed interest in obtaining one, he added. The Museum of Modern Art in Saitama, Japan, meanwhile has a unit in its collection already.
Kurokawa’s architecture firm, which continued operating after his death, announced that it intends to preserve the building in a “digital space.”
“We are determined to preserve the capsules, even if the building is demolished,” said Maeda. “Dozens of capsules with relatively little aging will be recovered and rehabilitated.
"There is no doubt that the building was famous, but the Capsule Tower also had a certain charm that appealed to people. Everyone who stayed there was creative in his or her own way, and the community that formed was truly fascinating. I am sad to see it go, but I hope it will live on in a new form.”
they may have “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” but we have “metabolic adaptations to energy deprivation lead to chronic depression & anxiety, food & body preoccupations, and inevitable weight gain” and i think that’s pretty catchy!
Discovery of new metabolic pathway for stored sugars helps explain how cellular energy is produced and expended in obesity, advancing therapeutic potential
Humans carry around with them, often abundantly so, at least two kinds of fat tissue: white and brown. White fat cells are essentially inert containers for energy stored in the form of a single large, oily droplet. Brown fat cells are more complex, containing multiple, smaller droplets intermixed with dark-colored mitochondria — cellular organelles that give them their color and are the “engines” that convert the lipid droplets into heat and energy.
Some people also have “beige” fat cells, brown-like cells residing within white fat that can be activated to burn energy.
In recent years, there has been much effort to find ways to increase brown or beige fat cell activity, to induce fat cells, known as adipocytes, to burn energy and generate heat in a process called thermogenesis as a means to treat obesity, type 2 diabetes and other conditions.
But the therapeutic potential of brown fat — and perhaps beige fat cells —has been stymied by the complexity of the processes involved. It wasn’t until 2009 that the existence of active brown fat cells in healthy adults was confirmed; previously it was believed they were common only in newborns.
In a new study, published online October 27, 2021 in Nature, an international team of researchers led by senior author Alan Saltiel, PhD, director of the Institute for Diabetes and Metabolic Health at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, describe how energy expenditure and heat production are regulated in obesity through a previously unknown cellular pathway.
Image: Artistic rendering of a brown fat cell with nucleus in pink, mitochondria in purple and yellow lipid droplets scattered throughout. Image courtesy of Scientific Animations.
Made these Biochemistry & Metabolism notes from last semester for my final exam :) It was my first time taking a 5 credit hour subject. Honestly, there were tons of stuffs + terms to memorize, especially the metabolic pathways. The nucleotide biosynthesis topic was really tough for me b/c I’ve never learn it before + I also had to memorize the diseases + syndromes along with how they affect the associated pathways. Well, I’m just glad that I got a GPA 4.0 for my Biochemistry & Metabolism! Hard work does pay off :)
Your metabolic rate is how quickly food goes through your digestion system. I’m sure you’ve heard someone say I have a really high metabolism and wondered what that meant. Someone with a naturally high metabolic rate will find it hard to gain fat because there food goes quickly through there digestion system so not much nutrients are gained in the small intestine. However someone with a naturally low metabolism will find it very easy to put on weight. So why does the body have a metabolic rate and can it change?
yes your metabolic rate can change if you don’t eat food for a period of time so when people wake up they have a low metabolic rate so they need a small meal to give them energy and to raise the metabolic rate. So why does the body have this then?
When people have to hunt for food maybe for a extensive period of time food would not be available so when the food was finally available the body gets as much nutrients as possible and gets as much fat as possible so that there had a reserve to last them until there next meal.
Dentro de los fenómenos estéticos de la modernidad, el constructivismo siempre ha ocupado un lugar muy especial, quizás por caracterizarse por el linde de lo ornamental.
Hacer un recorrido por la historicidad constructivista, si bien austera será necesaria para comprender este fenómeno que desde hace un tiempo parece haber redoblado la apuesta en la contemporaneidad.
Podríamos rastrear la tradición constructivista hacia los primeros postulados desarrollados por William Morris, fundador del movimiento arts and crafts[1]en Inglaterra a mediados del siglo XIX. Luego tomados por la escuela de la BauHaus en Alemania durante la primera mitad del siglo XX.
La escuela de la BauHaus profundizaría la idea de Morris de revalorizar el trabajo artesano, pretendiendo reivindicar al ser inventor por sobre las nuevas tecnologías en desarrollo post revolución industrial, haciendo énfasis en la creatividad artística en la producción en serie.
Influenciada por los movimientos de vanguardia, y por la incorporación de Theo Van Doesburg y El Lizzitsky al cuerpo docente, pronto la escuela de la BauHaus abandona su lenguaje expresionista y adquiere una identidad propia: una suerte de fusión entre el expresionismo y los movimientos artísticos concreto-constructivistas con sus filosofías binómicas:
“Las grandes energías polares de la vida «naturaleza e inteligencia,
o los principios masculino y femenino, lo negativo y lo positivo,
lo estático y lo dinámico, lo horizontal y lo vertical»´´[2]
Pero las ideas contemporáneas no terminarían por encontrarse conformes con las ideas de la escuela alemana de romper con el predominio del individuo.
Hacia comienzos de la década de 1930, la Bauhaus ya se había convertido en una escuela con gran énfasis en arquitectura y años más tarde cerraría, habiendo dejado abierta una gran puerta para el desarrollo del diseño proyectual mundial.
Quizás los movimientos más interesantes en arquitectura datan de mediados del siglo XX en adelante. Con distintos focos mundiales, los que más podrían interesarnos son la arquitectura brutalista, y el desarrollo del movimiento metabolista en Japón, luego extendido a occidente.
Si bien el carácter del metabolismo se desligó de muchos conceptos de principios de siglo, y podría considerárselo como un movimiento con independencia y opacidad suficiente en cuanto al diseño contemporáneo, cabe destacar los esfuerzos de Kisho Kurokawa al relacionar modelos biológicos y arquitectónicos, y por el legado de documentos visuales que nos ha dejado.
En las últimas décadas se han desarrollado muchas marcas con gran auge a nivel mundial en tradición constructivista, tales como Rick Owens, Comme des Garçons y Maison Martin Margiela, entre otros. Fuertemente influenciados por la transculturalidad oriente-occidente, el mundo de la moda ha aceptado de manera muy positiva sus propuestas y al día de hoy, luego de años de que occidente central haya hegemonizado el estilo, el constructivismo toma revancha.
Pero es la evolución de este movimiento lo que me interesa desarrollar: Alrededor de un siglo después, el constructivismo, que, como ya hemos dicho, se caracterizó durante largo tiempo por su austeridad, o quizás por así decirlo por su ausencia de ornamentación aparente, parece haberla encontrado.
Este tipo de diseño durante mucho tiempo dejó de lado el atavío visual, para transformarlo en un elemento táctil. La seducción del constructivismo, en moda, se halla en el descubrimiento concepto-perceptual de la prenda, lejos de su simplicidad y decoro, y parece que su especial cosmovisión en cuanto a su relación con la naturaleza, hoy, le ha brindado su ornamentación propia y ha permitido el desarrollo de un nuevo tipo de lenguaje.
Algunos lo llaman neo-constructivismo, pero en realidad no ha sido el desarrollo y profundización del movimiento, sino su devenir hacia un meta-constructivismo, consecuencia de sus propios límites materiales, lo que lo han cargado de lo que muchos prefieren llamar su carácter lugubricista.
Yusuke Kagari, diseñador Japonés contemporáneo, ha sabido captar la esencia de la propia contemporaneidad constructivista en sus trabajos y, casi diez años después de la fundación de su marca, podemos notar que esta posee una identidad inapelable.
Su producto no solo posee un nivel de desarrollo funcional y estructural estupendo, es además original, innovador y permite al mundo un ejemplo claro de esta evolución lúgubre de los caracteres estéticos ya mencionados.
La discursividad desarrollada por Kagari pareciera combinar lo mejor de la cultura occidental y de la herencia constructivo-oriental, brindando así un producto netamente contemporáneo, con todos los matices de transculturización, funcionalidad y conceptualización que esto implica.
No es que uno siempre quiera ver hacia afuera, pero realmente su estetización de lo feo o quizás lo no estético vuelve a sus diseños un producto original. Un producto original dentro de una contemporaneidad que posee una ideología de culto a lo lúgubre y abandónico. Que considera lo destructivo como algo bello, y que posee un gusto que lejos de lo refinado se caracteriza por la esteticidad, embellecimiento, aceptación y fascinación de una suerte de vulgaridad con la cual pareciéramos querer identificarnos.
[1] Del inglés ‘’Arte y artesanías’’. Si bien la posibilidad de traducción permite ``arte y oficios´´ he preferido esta acepción del concepto porque se encuentra más ligada a la ideología de Morris.
[2] Theo Van Doesburg: Der Wille zum Stil. En T.v. Doesburg 1883-1931. Cat. De exp. Abemuseum. Eindhoven 1968, pág. 49
Fall Flat Tummy Tip: Most people know drinking #water promotes #weight loss and speeds up #digestion. However the temperature of your #water may enhance the way it works for you. Drinking hot or warm water throughout the day will support your digestion and during the colder months this is an easy thing to accomplish. I like to add #lemon, or tea, or #ginger ❤️. On the other hand, during the hot months I find myself drinking colder water because it cools down my body which in turn helps to speed up your #metabolism because your body needs to warm back up. At the end of the day… Drink water
A model of the Nakagin Capsule Tower and the real thing. Designed by Kurokawa Kishō and built in 1972, the iconic tower has long attracted admirers as a shining example of the Metabolism movement. It is now slated for demolition sometime in early 2022.
We’re starting our “metabolism” module at med school this week, and I’m dreading it with every fibre of my being. You see, I am going to be a doctor, and I am fat.
I’m not the type of fat you feel after you’ve had a big lunch, and your usually flat belly is protesting against the waistband of your jeans. I’m the real kind. My BMI hovers a couple of points below “morbidly obese”.
I worry a lot about what people will think of me as a fat doctor. For the smartarses among you, of course I’ve tried to be non-fat, it goes without saying. The thing is though, bodies don’t really like weighing less all of a sudden and are pretty good at reversing things in the long run. Mostly my body settles back to the same size 18 shape eventually.
I am always aware of my fatness, but perhaps more so here at medical school. We are training to work with bodies, and mine is a type of body we warn our patients not to have. It is the first thing described in every list of ‘modifiable risk factors’. A colleague suggests “just don’t let yourself get too fat” as we talk about preventing a certain type of cancer. A final exam question asks us to list four poor health outcomes associated with obesity. I sit through lectures with slides that have sniggering titles like “how BIG is the problem?”
Authors: Federico Baltar, Barbara Bayer, Nina Bednarsek, Stacy Deppeler, Ruben Escribano, Carolina E. Gonzalez, Roberta L. Hansman, Rajani Kanta Mishra, Mary Ann Moran, Daniel J. Repeta, Carol Robinson, Eva Sintes, Christian Tamburini, Luis E. Valentin, Gerhard J. Herndl
Published In: Cell Press Reviews: Trends in Ecology & Evolution
Goal/Questions Asked: To discuss the importance of including both evolution and metabolism in studies about how marine microbial communities will be affected by climate change.
Methods: N/A
What I Learned: The environment affects traits in a population because of adaptation and selection, but evolutionary changes also affect community processes. Thus, the two have a back-and-forth relationship that must be kept in mind. Most studies about climate change focus on increased temperature, suggesting almost universally that respiration rates will increase with temperature more than photosynthetic rates (the ocean will become net heterotrophic). More extreme weather conditions are also predicted to occur.
Populations on the periphery of their realized niche will likely be more dramatically affected by climate change than populations in the center, as populations on the periphery will be less dense and more likely under environmental stress.
*Nekton can swim; plankton cannot. Thus, nekton can respond to environmental changes by migrating, but may be more affected by front conditions (plankton populations are often distributed according to front locations).
Neutral alleles drift randomly in a population until they become advantageous; then they can cause rapid adaptive evolution as they are immediately accessible and are present more than de novo mutations. The idea is that there are pre-existing variants within a population that may come to the forefront as the environment changes.
Future Directions: Studying the “rare biosphere” (microbe groups that persist at extremely low concentrations) and how its members might respond to environmental changes. From the paper itself, the following:
How will the interaction and/or combination of local adaptation and migration affect marine ecosystem services in response to current and future environmental changes?
Is it possible to simplify the response of marine ecosystems and their services to climate change to just the response of a few key marine species (linked to reductions or expansions in their realized and/or fundamental niche breadth)? If so, which should those key species be? What should be the parameters needed to define/select those key species?
How will these modifications of the niches of marine organisms be affected by differences in the environmental stressors and by the response of the organisms to tolerate or react to these stressors?
What can empirical and theoretical studies on past and present shifts in fundamental and realized niche breadth in response to marine environmental changes tell us about the future of marine ecosystems and their services?
How important is the link between metabolic potential and actual rates of biogeochemical cycling and community composition and function in the marine environment in the light of evolutionary forces?
What does your thyroid do all day? Find out with our adorable and nerdy graphic all about this metabolic master.
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