Development

In four subchapters: Subsistence minimum (Existenzminimum), CIAM, and the new generation; From Buckminster Fuller to counterculture 1960; British techno-utopia and experiments for the immediate future; and Japanese metabolism and the philosophy of change, we examine the first modern capsules (which were designated as such) and their successors, and the origins and development of the concept of the capsule as shown through the theoretical concept of modernism and the sociopolitical situation after World War II. The functionalist approach, questions of subsistence minimum (Existenzminimum), prefabrication and mobility on the one hand, and the stylized machine aesthetics of the acclaimed International Style on the other, had been subject to critical and radical technological rethinking and realization, even before World War II. An overview of Buckminster Fuller’s works, covering studies on individualized dwelling units known as Dymaxion, or geodesic domes, and the use of his inventions in radical environments of counterculture movements in the United States, reveals a number of early reactions to the dictates of the Modern Movement, to the Cold War reality, as well as to cultural and spatial dimensions of the rebellious post-war generation.

Post-war developments in Great Britain, with revisionist criticism of the Modern Movement by the Independent Group, highlighted by Reyner Banham and Alison and Peter Smithson’s New Brutalism with their protocapsular architecture of the House of the Future, have been followed by the origins, development, and first designs of living units called “capsules” by Archigram and Cedric Price. Incorporating differences, blurring the boundaries between popular and high culture, and exhibiting an interest for everyday life and authenticity resulted in an open mode of action. This established the foundations for the development of many experimental practices that introduced radical reflections on the mode of dwelling, residing, as well as living in the city, and comprehension of the environment in general.

Although Archigram’s early capsule units were inspired by the space capsule, which was founded on an entirely different concept and efficiency requirements than traditional buildings, their ergonomic design, the possibility of serial production and integrated expendability, their extendability, and the interchangeability of some elements, or even the entire capsule, as consumer goods demonstrate precisely such an expression, albeit one that does not depend on the appearance of the space capsule. With its industrial design approach, the sophisticated machine for living in was completely tailored to the needs of the individual leading a deliberately radical contemporary pop lifestyle, characterized by continuous changes and stimuli, excitement, action, fun, and expendability, a lifestyle that could indeed (supposedly) be realized in a megastructure city.

In Japan, the concept of the capsule relates to the nation’s cultural traditions, though it is reformed under the pressure of post-war social reality, founded as a response to urgent needs in fast-growing big cities which required rapid reconstruction, and responded to ineffective spatial planning. It also reflects faith in science, technology, and modernity of newly defined Japanese society. With regard to modern technology, Japanese Metabolists implemented an architectural concept that encompasses invisible tradition, and enables ceaseless Metabolist transformation of structures interrelated with the cycle of changes in human life.

Duality of permanence and transitivity is manifested in durable megastructure formations of “artificial land” – artificial islands or massive cores with cells “growing” out or being “clipped” onto them. These cells are like living capsule units with a shorter life cycle, the origins of which can be observed in experiments on dwelling units for extreme conditions. Plug-in living units were already being used in projects by Kiyonori Kikutake and Kisho Kurokawa at the end of the 1950s, and then came to be referred to as “capsules” in the second half of the 1960s, when they became an almost established and predictable practice among designers and in competitions in Japan, although they were rarely constructed.

The manifesto Capsule Declaration and realizations of built capsular dwellings established Kisho Kurokawa as the leading representative and prophet of capsule architecture, which he believed to hold liberating potential for the individual and the possibility of the radical transformation of society as a whole. The concept of the capsule is positioned in open conflict with existing building and social situations. It can be regarded as a utopian vision of good intentions, as well as a critique of the status quo, which was supposed to be overthrown by such a radical proposition.