Tokyo's retro-sci-fi Nakagin Capsule Tower was designed by architect Kisho Kurokawa and erected in 1972 in only 30 days. Despite repeated attempts to tear it down and replace it with a more modern building, the tower still stands. The exterior of the building is weathered and stained, bringing to mind Portal 2, while the stark white apartments, with molded one-piece features and a single round window, look as if they were imagined by Stanley Kubrick. Some of the rooms still have built-in Sony reel-to-reel tape recorders.
There's a movement to save the tower, and the people behind it are leasing 30 apartments for about $1,200 a month. Sora News 24 sent one of their reporters to stay in one of the apartments. You can read about her experience and see lots of photos in the article.
As part of its preservation plans, the "Save Nakagin Tower" project has been leasing around 30 capsule apartments to the public on a monthly basis since 2018. However, these monthly stays were temporarily closed recently, which came as sad news to our Japanese-language reporter Chie Nomura, who had been waiting to rent one of these apartments. She managed to get in contact with Tatsuyuki Maeda, a representative from the organization, to let him know her desire to live in the tower, and after a few days passed, she was thrilled when he called her back to let her know an apartment had become available.
