Nihon Noir – Nakagin Capsule Tower Photo

Once again, the icon of Japanese metabolism architecture, the Nakagin Capsule Tower, has made it onto these pages. This time it was photographed by Tom Blachford in the nightime.

Click the image for more Nihon Noir photographs.

A rough image from night 1 of my shoot in tokyo in collaboration with @asahibeer_au. The nagakin capsule tower built 1970. We arrived at the tower to find that there were no good views possible from the ground or any surrounding walkways. Instead I somehow managed to convince a crew of highway repairmen in front of the building to stop their work and take me 20m into the air in their crane lift to get the perfect angle. Was truly epic! Can’t wait to share some more images and footage with you.

— from Tom Blachford’s instagram

1972 – Nakagin Capsule Tower photos

Do you remember that post about Nakagin Capsule Tower in Tokyo I wrote 7 months ago?

Back then I seem to have missed a certain photography project called 1972 by Noritaka Minami. It comprises a total of 24 shots documenting the tower’s derelict condition in 2011 and 2012. See one sixth of it below or visit the project’s page for more.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The artist Noritaka Minami is interested in applying the medium of photography as a means of investigating history and memory associated with sites. He currently works as a TA in Photography at the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University.

Website: www.noritakaminami.com

Nakagin Capsule Tower

Nakagin Capsule Tower, Tokyo is a beautiful example of modular architecture by a well-known architect Kisho Kurokawa. Simple, compact cuboids clustered around two concrete needles must have looked straight out of a science fiction story when they were built. Completed in 1972, the structure is rather old for a building and its age (and poor to none maintenance) has been becoming obvious in the past years. Not to mention worries have been expressed as to potentially harmful levels of asbestos, well-known for its numerous positive properties in the building industry and later discovered to cause serious damage to humans’ internal organs, especially lungs, upon inhalation.

Both of the towers – one has 11 floors, the other 13.