Esoteric Survey

The Steel Pavilion by Kunio Maekawa is one of the few original Expo 70 buildings still standing. It now houses a museum dedicated to Expo 70.  A piece of the Expo 70 Tower by Kiyonari Kikutake (below) sits near the building. Expo 70 Tower Kenzo Tange's vision for the Expo master plan was a futuristic aerial city that was based on the Metabolism movement. He worked with a dozen architects; including Fumihiko Maki, Noboru Kawazoe, Koji Kamiya and Noriaki Kurokawa. Takara Pavilion by Kisho Kurokawa Source: Archpaper Toshiba-IHI Pavilion by  Kisho Kurokawa A model is on display. Those planters look like the same ones used at Kisho Kurokawa's  Nakagin Capsule Tower . I have no idea what this is.  Takeshi Otaka designed the  cherry blossom used as the symbol of the Expo. The identity guidelines were on display. Sori Yanagi stools are used in an area playing period footage of the expo. Despite the music,...

I went to Japan again. My first stop was the Nakagin Capsule Tower (1972) by Kisho Kurokawa .  It's located in the Shimbashi/Ginza area of Tokyo. The 14-story mixed-use residential and office tower has 140 detachable capsules around a central concrete core. The Nakagin was based on Metabolism and exchangeability and was a sustainable architecture prototype.  "The visions of Kurokawa Kisho, Kikutake Kiyonori, Maki Fumihiko, and other architects who had come under the influence of Tange Kenzo gave birth to an architectural movement that was called 'Metabolism.' The name, taken from the biological concept, came from an image of architecture and cities that shared the ability of living organisms to keep growing, reproducing, and transforming in response to their environments." - Metabolism: The City of The Future, Mori Art Museum   A capsule that was on display at Mori Art Museum's Metabolism Exhibition in 2011 and 2012. Source: Japa...