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By Yuri Kageyama

The Associated Press

TOKYO 鈥� Nakagin Capsule Tower, a building tucked away in a corner of downtown Tokyo that is made up of boxes stacked on top of each other, is an avant-garde honeycomb of science-fiction-era housing long admired as a masterpiece.

It鈥檚 now being dismantled in a careful process. Some of the building鈥檚 140 capsules will be shipped to museums around the world.

Crews have spent months preparing for clearance of the area surrounding the landmark near Ginza. The first capsule will be removed in the next few weeks.

The 13-floor building, which opened in 1972, embodies the so-called 鈥渕etabolism鈥� vision of its architect Kisho Kurokawa: the idea that cities and buildings are always changing, reflecting life, in rhythm with the human body.

鈥淣o one exists divorced from the thoughts of those around him,鈥� Kurokawa wrote in his 1994 book 鈥淧hilosophy of Symbiosis.鈥� 鈥淎ll comes into existence through an assembly of causes. All things are interrelated. In accord with this principle, it is our aim to build an ideal world, step by step.鈥�

Kurokawa died in 2007, at 73.

Although striking in appearance and concept, the building outlived modern construction guidelines and needed to be torn down.

Skyscrapers have popped up nearby, dwarfing Nakagin. A developer took over the property in 2021.

Tatsuyuki Maeda, who started using Nakagin as a second home in 2010, said he simply loved being in that 8.2-foot-wide space 鈥� so tiny but cozy it felt like a child鈥檚 hideaway. And it got his creative juices going, he said.

鈥淭he view from that round window felt so good,鈥� Maeda said. 鈥淎t night, when cars sped by, their lights on the nearby freeway were pretty. And the cityscape was beautiful.鈥�

Appliances and shelves are built into the walls. A desk pops out in one section. In another is a Sony reel-to-reel tape recorder 鈥� state-of-the-art electronics of the 1970s that now is historical memorabilia like the building itself.

Only about a third of Nakagin鈥檚 residents lived there full-time in recent years. Most used it as offices and workspaces. They tended to be creative people, musicians, filmmakers and architects, as though it drew people sharing similar values.

Maeda, who does public relations work, owned 15 capsules, mainly to have a say in the building鈥檚 fate; he had rented some of them out. Residents would party together, he recalled.

He and others had been working together since 2014 to save Nakagin, first to prevent its destruction and spur rehabilitation, but eventually to hand down its legacy as an artwork. The project raised money through crowdfunding and led to publication of a book, complete with photos: 鈥淣akagin Capsule Tower: The Last Record.鈥�

The preservation project calls for some of the capsules to allow for real-life living in a separate locale. Those in museums will be refinished by the Kurokawa architectural office, which went over the original designs to figure out how each box could be detached with minimal damage. That feat will be especially difficult in the crowded Ginza area.

Will Gardner, a Swarthmore College professor whose specialty is Japanese modernism, says the metabolist movement had its 鈥渕oment鈥� of recognition for its organic approach to Tokyo鈥檚 20th century urban-planning problems, such as overcrowding and a lack of infrastructure.

It was an era when Japan was rebuilding from the ruins of World War II, undergoing rapid economic growth, buzzing with creative energy and trying to define itself.

But metabolist designs did not win wide acceptance among real estate developers, construction companies or consumers, who all turned to more conservative prefabricated housing, said Gardner, who wrote 鈥淭he Metabolist Imagination: Visions of the City in Postwar Japanese Architecture and Science Fiction.鈥�

鈥淭his was a generation of architects that came out in this era when everything had been destroyed,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut at the same time there was a lot of dynamism, and the economy was on the rebound, and there seemed to be a moment when this big vision could really thrive. For a lot of reasons, today鈥檚 Japan is very different.鈥�

Kurokawa was heavily influenced by Kenzo Tange, who designed the Yoyogi National Gymnasium for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. An art museum in Tokyo鈥檚 Roppongi that looks like a waving wall of glass, which opened in 2007, and the 1999 new wing of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam were designed by Kurokawa.

Nakagin was one of his early efforts. Its defiantly repetitive motif both celebrated and challenged mass production in an appeal to individuals, especially those lost in conformist Japan.

Kurokawa developed the technology to install the units into a concrete core shaft with four high-tension bolts. The capsules were designed to be detachable; they could be swapped out for new ones, or recycled, every 25 years.

That never happened.

Instead, after 50 years, the pieces are coming apart.

Kurokawa used to say that, long after his buildings were gone, his thinking would live on.

His designs address sustainability and social accountability, said Tomohiro Fujisawa of Kisho Kurokawa Architect and Associates, and those issues remain urgent today.

鈥淭he world maybe has finally caught up with him,鈥� Fujisawa said.