ABSTRACT
This chapter presents Metabolism as a model of survival architecture whose design tactics can be widely applied. The Metabolists’ proposals for future cities have been widely associated with technological optimism and utopian rhetoric prevalent in architecture and urbanism in the 1960s. However, the Metabolists’ visionary urban schemes—cities erected on the sea or spiraling into the sky—did not simply fit into the unified category of utopian architecture; rather, their proposals for future cities were largely saturated with the fear and anxiety over a metabolic rift and looming environmental crisis. I would argue that the lesson learned from the Metabolist movement is an insight into how to survive apocalypse and regenerate the city whilst embracing mass destruction and existential anxiety. This lesson has surfaced in recent years with renewed urgency and relevance since the Anthropocene narratives posed a complex challenge to the field of architecture and urbanism. This chapter aims to illuminate the group’s under-recognized concerns over impending catastrophe and to examine how the sense of crisis and apocalyptic future scenarios shaped their unique architectural thinking and design.
