The ghost of organic architecture lives on.

I got to experience the thrill and joy of “hunting” down the elusive Nakagin Capsule tower on my 3rd trip to Japan. My wife and I were trying out Mos Burger and visited Shinbashi Station just south of Ginza. The station had seen better days, but the shopping mall under the elevated freeway that travels through downtown was bright, shiny and had the Mos Burger inside. And it was everybit as unique a hambagah experience as I hoped. Afterward we went out looking for things to do, and it popped in my head, I had a smart phone! So why not lookup where Nakagin Capsule tower was located. Well folks, little did I know. If it had been a snake it would have bit me.

We walked out of the shopping center under the freeway, and found the big surface street running parallel with the elevated freeway. And I peered down into the smart phone screen it pointed to my right, which was South, and I looked and didn’t see it. But my wife, she of the sharp eye. Said, OMG! There it is! And folks I had took real hard, but I could just make out the front edge of the building with all the little capsules stacked on one another. It was everything I could do to keep from running down the street. I just had to see it up close. And I spent the next hour, taking picture, reading the info display card and sample capsule mounted outside the entrance to the building. I didn’t dare walk inside. But I did get all the pictures. This was probably around 2008. Fast forward to 2020 and the building was disassembled, torn down (after years of floating along, waiting for the end to come). But the capsules themselves,… they live on! Just like the statues from the facade and roof of the deceased Penn Station in Manhattan.

The capsules have been adopted and undergoing restoration, so the spirit and novelty of Nakagin Capsule Tower lives on.