Who designed the Nakagin Capsule Tower in Tokyo?

Kisho Kurokawa designed the Nakagin Capsule Tower in Tokyo.

The mixed-use residential and office building was created in Tokyo’s Ginza district as a landmark of Japanese Metabolist architecture. Kurokawa developed the project from his ideas about replaceable, prefabricated living units attached to permanent structural cores. Construction began in 1970, and the tower was completed in 1972.

The building consisted of two interconnected concrete towers supporting 140 factory-made capsules. Each compact unit was intended to function as a self-contained room for visiting businesspeople, short-term residents, or office use. The capsules were produced off-site and then attached to the towers, making the project an unusually literal attempt to apply industrial production to architecture.

The tower is sometimes confused with work by other major Japanese architects, including Tadao Ando, Kenzo Tange, or Arata Isozaki, but none of them designed it. Aging services, deterioration, and disputes over preservation led to its dismantling in 2022. A small number of capsule units were retained for preservation and possible reuse elsewhere.