Metabolism might not be the best-known postwar architectural movement, but it was surely one of the most imaginative. The brainchild of young Japanese architects including Fumihiko Maki, Masato Otaka, Kiyonori Kikutake and Kisho Kurokawa, Metabolism sought to create buildings that, like organisms, would grow and develop over time. “We regard human society as a vital process — a continuous development from atom to nebula,” they explained in their 1960 manifesto. If society developed like an organism, they reasoned, architecture should work the same way.
The Nakagin Capsule Tower in the 70s; via ArchDaily
The best-known Metabolist building in Japan is probably the Nakagin Capsule Tower. Completed in 1972, the residential tower consists of 140 prefabricated cubic capsules. The idea was that more capsules could be added or subtracted as needed, making expansion a cinch. Capsules could also be combined or even replaced. Unfortunately, these dreams never came to pass: No serious modifications have ever been made to the capsule tower, which has now fallen into a state of disrepair.
“Spatial Bodies” by AUJIK. Having trouble viewing on mobile? Click here.
If Metabolist buildings never caught on, their ideas have continued to inspire new generations of architects and other artists. This is made abundantly clear in a new film entitled “Spatial Bodies,” which reimagines the Osaka skyline as a kind of giant, concrete organism. Metabolist ideas seem to be an obvious reference point for the project, which shows buildings branching and twisting around one another, some in gravity-defying ways. A few of the fantastical structures featured in the film even resemble capsule towers.
“‘Spatial Bodies’ depicts the urban landscape and architectural bodies as an autonomous living and self-replicating organism,” said AUJIK, the filmmaking collective behind the project, “domesticated and cultivated only by its own nature, a vast concrete vegetation, oscillating between order and chaos.”
The evocation of “chaos” separates this project somewhat from Metabolism’s idealistic intentions. Perhaps the filmmakers — who describe themselves as a “mysterious nature/tech cult” — have a grimmer conception of nature than the Metabolists did. Indeed, if buildings really could grow like plants, it stands to reason that they would sometimes become overgrown.
Images via Colossalunless noted otherwise; video via AUJIK