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.
[Image: scarletgreen, CC-BY]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.
