Topic: Two things past their time...

[Skorj]

... Polaroids, and Kisho Kurokawa's 1971 Nakagin Capsule tower.  I called past on the way home from work today, as I had heard it was to be pulled down. The caretaker, who no longer gives out the model-room key, tells me it will all be gone later this year. Shogani ne... Skj.







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[moominsean]

interesting building, and nice juxtaposition....

looks like they are building next to it.

that's one of the things i found fascinating about tokyo...every building was a different shape. lots of weird angles, staircases on the outside, stuff like that. everything here is pretty similar.

[Francois]

You mean they're actually going to tear down a design icon of the early 70's ?
This building was even featured in Decorative Arts magazine's Best of the year issue!
I have a big book from Taschen about these issues.

The building's official name is the BC25 Capsule. The lower floors are office space. The upper floors are residential cast concrete modules. You used to buy the capsule of your choice and have it attached to the center column. Quite futuristic!

Here's a few excerpts from the book for curiosity's sake.
It shows the building stage, the model capsules and an interior shot.
(I know, I'm nuts about architecture  )
 

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[moominsean]

i wonder if you could buy a capsule and have it removed from the building. take it somewhere else.

[Skorj]

(I know, I'm nuts about architecture  )
 

Me too! I think the type of `capsule` used is called a `BC25`, and a few places were made from them... This particular building is called the Nakagin Building, and is just off Ginza in Shimbashi. Here are some more (QL17) from a few years ago...

i wonder if you could buy a capsule and have it removed from the building. take it somewhere else.

I suppose you could. For various reasons, it is in limbo-land for ideas now.



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[Francois]

Somehow, when a good modern building gets torn down, I feel a big part of history gets erased... not to mention a big part of the collective imaginary.

Over the Holidays, I've been watching a DVD set on the 1967 world expo in Montreal. It's been only 40 years and nearly all the buildings have been demolished. When you look at the old archive footage, you just wonder why they let it all go down the drain! And did the place offer top of the line photo ops by the thousands! Kodak even had a pavilion to encourage filmwasting

The last big thing they did there was shoot a show of the TV series "Buck Rodgers" back in the early 80's. They needed a place where there were the remnants of a futuristic society. Now, the futuristic society has been demolished. It seems like they killed the dream at the same time. So all those who dreamed of living like the Jetsons in the 21st century are stuck having to look at McMansions...

Here is one of the few remaining buildings. (geodesic dome by Buckminster Fuller)
It's the only file I currently have at hand. The other pictures are somewhere in my boxes and have yet to be scanned.
Holga+Fujifilm Pro160S

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[Yaniv Waissa]

The image is my favorite. I love the building and the tree
Thnaks

Yaniv

[Ed Wenn]

Great thread, guys. I'm an architecture nut too.

Skorj, some of your second lot of capsule photos reminded me of this one that I took of the lloyds Building in London with a Zorki-10 and some Ukranian Tasma Super ASA100 film a few years ago. Same feel?



I do get concerned with 'building photos' sometimes that I'm just pointing and snapping...in much the same way that I would at a statue say...and that all the hard work was done by the architect and the builders. Hmmm. I guess there's an art to it, though just recently I've not managed so many successful building shots.

[Francois]

Well...buildings aren't statues. Statues are usually small things and all you can do is find their best profiles.

Buildings are big things and can be viewed from many angles. You can also greatly alter the viewer's perception just by choosing the time of day (angle of the sun), weather, film, lens, etc... The architect's work does have something do do with it. But I feel it still gives more photographic flexibility than with statues.

[rdbkorn]

I've been enjoying the images in this topic, since I've been finding myself fascinated recently by the juxtaposition of angles and tones found in buildings. I agree with you Ed that there's a challenge to get beyond the "snapping" phase. And Francois, I agree with you that buildings and architecture present far more scope that statues. Inspired by some of the images, I took a holga for a walk around campus yesterday:



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[MarkBurley]

Great image and one more thing...

Last year I got involved in a retouching project for a diagnostics company. They asked me to create a new London skyline and drop in ten different iconic buildings, one of of which was the Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome...

It was great fun but eventually I found it much more difficult than I expected. The client wanted me to retain the relevant building sizes and somehow put it together in scale. Their clients had to guess where the buildings came from and name them - for a small prize of course!

After much cursing and screaming it took me something like a day and a half. I will try and find a copy of it and post it tomorrow.

Mark

[Skorj]

great set here! thanks all.