I’ve liked this building from childhood, but somehow I managed to see it with fresh eyes recently – I was late for an art event there, it was dusk, I was tired, the entry was deserted and somehow I suddenly noticed how ridiculously beautiful it is. It houses the Museum of Vancouver and the H.R. MacMillan Planetarium, famous in part for the Led Zep and Pink Floyd laser light shows which everyone steadfastly refuses to attend with me. I’ve been trying to get someone to go with me for years. The building’s shape probably references both flying saucers and the finely woven hats of the Salish First Nations on whose traditional lands Vancouver squats. The architect is George Hamilton and the building was completed in 1968; the stainless steel crab fountain (turned off for maintenance when I took these photos) is by sculptor George Norris. Click photos for more information.

and these shots by ChimayBleue on Flickr:

It shouldn’t be that difficult; it comes apart. The owner residents of Tokyo’s famous Nakagin Capsule Tower have voted to demolish it and rebuild a “modern” tower on the same location, which is now a valuable property adjacent to the Ginza district. See the recent article by architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff in the NYT and an interesting post on pingmag. The building was designed by Japanese architect Kurokawa Kishō in 1972, in the style known as Japanese Metabolism. Typical of the buildings in that movement, each capsule is suspended from the structure independently (rather like this), so even though the capsules’ interiors are now outdated (all-in-one plastic consoles including built-in reel-to-reel audio systems!), each capsule can be removed, gutted, de-asbestosized, refurbished, and lifted back into place, and that is exactly the solution the architect recently proposed before his death. The real issue is land value – the apartment owners want a more “efficient” use of the lot, which means they want to maximize the “value” of each apartment. They say the capsules are cramped, but they’re no different than most Tokyo apartments. Every Japanese architectural association has argued for preserving the building, as have international architectural critics and associations, but the futuristic building’s future doesn’t look good. I love this building; I had a postcard of it on my desk all through school. So I’m asking you, Vancouver, you who contains so little interesting architecture: since these capsules are individually removable, why not have the building stacked like jenga pieces on a freighter and floated over here? Since you apparently want to install a new 14-storey homeless housing 3 blocks from me – despite the fact that this neighbourhood already contains almost the densest social housing for the homeless anywhere in the world, and studies overwhelmingly show that this level of density is a really bad idea – here is my suggestion: I won’t complain about your badly-thought-out scheme IF you buy this 14-storey building from Tokyo. It’s the same height as the one you’re planning anyway – so convenient. And the rooms are actually bigger than the tiny ones you usually provide. Final note: I am the farthest thing from being against housing for the homeless, one of Vancouver’s most pressing needs, but am against the city’s imagination-less, ill-designed social architecture, its decision to locate all of these things in a single 8-square-block area, as well as building an ugly new high-rise in what is otherwise a low-rise neighbourhood. Solutions are necessary, but they need to make sense socially and architecturally too. As for views on micro-apartments in Vancouver, see here. More on Treehugger. Photo of the architect’s own capsule on the top floor is here.

I volunteer to help refurbish it. For a discussion of some of the arguments against the Nakagin Tower, see an excellent article at Reloading Images. Below is from the building’s Wikipedia entry, updated only a few days ago to include Ouroussoff’s article:

The original target demographic were bachelor salarymen. The compact apartments included a wall of appliances and cabinets built in to one side, including a kitchen stove, a refrigerator, a television set, and a reel-to-reel tape deck. A bathroom unit, about the size of an aircraft lavatory, is set into an opposite corner. A large circular window over a bed dominates the far end of the room.
Construction occurred on site and off site. On-site work included the two towers and their energy-supply systems and equipment, while the capsule parts were fabricated and the capsules were assembled at a factory…

The capsules were fitted with utilities and interior fittings before being shipped to the building site, where they were attached to the concrete towers. Each capsule is attached independently and cantilevered from the shaft, so that any capsule may be removed easily without affecting the others. The capsules are all-welded lightweight steel-truss boxes clad in galvanized, rib-reinforced steel panels. On April 15, 2007, the building’s residents, citing squalid, cramped conditions as well as concerns over asbestos, voted to demolish the building and replace it with a much larger, more modern tower.

In the interest of preserving his design, Kurokawa proposed taking advantage of the flexible design by “unplugging” the existing boxes and replacing them with updated units, a plan supported by the major architectural associations of Japan, including the Japan Institute of Architects; the residents countered with concerns over the building’s earthquake resistance and its inefficient use of valuable property adjacent to the high-value Ginza.

A developer for the replacement has yet to be found, partly because of the Late-2000s recession. Opposing its slated demolition, Nicolai Ouroussoff, architecture critic for The New York Times, described Nakagin Capsule Tower as “gorgeous architecture; like all great buildings, it is the crystallization of a far-reaching cultural ideal. Its existence also stands as a powerful reminder of paths not taken, of the possibility of worlds shaped by different sets of values.”

From the standpoint of 1970, this is apparently how “1980″ was going to look. Actually, this vision wasn’t that far off, not as far off as Kubrick’s 1968 vision of what the year  2001 would look like. Above, a “think shell” from the total modular interior design concept known as “Home 1980.” IKEA needs to steal this idea. The kitchen is below. Photos from the vintage decor book 1601 Decorating Ideas for Modern Living, 1973.

Original captions for both photos: “From time to time the great chemical companies initiate research into the possibilities of the “house of tomorrow,” in order to bring their new synthetics to the atention of architects and interior designers and to show their versatility. The resulting creations, commissioned from outstanding design teams, often provide powerful impetus for mass productions – though models like the one shown here for a cooking center in “Home 1980″ will probably not be produced in the foreseable future. It is designed to be built into a large, open room, and consists of basic components that can be completed by a number of additional units, thus suiting the needs of the individual owner. The round counter-like table at the right combines the stove, warming tray, and dining area; the hood over it, which contains ventilation, dehumidifying, and lighting equipment, demonstrates what technical perfection is already possible in today’s kitchen…. The “think shell” also belongs to “Home 1980,” and is supposed to provide the privacy needed for work. The screen can be lowered out of sight. Cabinets on casters, which are pushed against the wall when not in use, make the table a very personal workplace: each family member can roll his own equipment over to it with a twist of the wrist.”

Berlin’s modernist and contemporary architecture stands in for Aeon Flux’s fictional city of Bregna in the year 2415 with surprisingly little alteration. At what point will modernist and contemporary architecture no longer seem quite so futuristic? Not only is modern architecture clearly still space-age in the popular unconscious, on some level its aesthetics and utopian aspirations are also clearly under suspicion. I can never decide if this is either well-founded skepticism or some sort of Puritan conservatism, or both. (A friend of mine recently pointed out that in Hollywood it’s always the villains who have the best taste in architecture and decor, but that’s another topic.) Not unlike the biosphere society in Logan’s Run, the future city of Bregna was purportedly built as a utopian haven but quickly reveals itself as a dark dystopia, its superb architecture suddenly taking on a more chilling nightmare feel. Much of the information about architecture in Aeon Flux in this post came from a long thread on architecture in film on pushpullbar, as well as from exhaustive fan websites here and here. There’s also an entertaining discussion here which tries to pin down the film’s architectural style and historical references. The photos above show the interior and exterior of the Baumschulenweg Crematorium of Alex Schultes and Charlotte Frank, which served as the ruling regime’s HQ in the film (note the Pierre Paulin ribbon chairs, in fuschia). All photos are from Paramount via here.

Above, familiar from the film’s poster, is the now disused 1935 Berlin Windkanal or aerodynamic testing windtunnel for German aircraft, built in 1932 and now designated a technical landmark. After WWII the Soviets removed all the equipment, leaving only the tunnel behind. It stands in for the “maze” and government complex in the film.

The Benjamin Franklin Conference Center Kongresshalle, above, by Hugh Stubbins with Werner Düttmann and Franz Mocken, 1957. It’s been renamed House of World Culture, but Berliners call it the ‘pregnant oyster’. Its roof, which has been rebuilt after a collapse in 1980, is the setting for a nighttime battle between Aeon on guards. on the roof at night.

Numerous scenes in the film were shot in the Tierschutzheim Berlin (2000-2001) by Dietrich Bangert, above. The building is actually a large, privately funded animal shelter complex.

Berlin’s modern concrete and glass Mexican Embassy, above, was a public marketplace in the film. It was designed by Francisco Serrano in collaboration with Teodoro González de León and completed in 2000.

The Volkspark Potsdam, 2001, popularly known as the BUGA Park, also includes the biosphere used as a tropical greenhouse in the film. Its recreation area, with standing concrete planes, appeared during the assassination mission sequence.

The scene above was shot at the Radsporthalle (Velodrom) by Dominique Perrault at the Landsberger Allee in Berlin Prenzlauer Berg. 1995-96.

Bauhaus Archiv, which served as the exterior of the building where Aeon and her sister Una live (the imaginary interior, probably just a studio set, is directly above). From the Bauhaus Archiv website: “The museum building is a late work of Walter Gropius [1883-1969], the founder of the Bauhaus. It was planned in 1964 for Darmstadt and was built 1976-79 in modified form in Berlin. Today, its characteristic silhouette is one of Berlin’s landmarks.” More information about the images below is forthcoming, once I figure out where they were shot. Anyone?

Complete list of locations below.

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This post is sort of a follow-up to a previous post with a similar thesis: that the 60s and 70s aren’t dead, they’re alive and well and living on tumblr. These photos of geodesic dome interiors and exteriors are just a small selection from randomfriendly,  nomadicway, julesandnicho, standardgrey and cerebralmuseum. Curious fact: Buckminster Fuller was not the inventor of these structures. The first geodesic dome was built 30 years earlier “by  Walther Bauersfeld, chief engineer of the Carl Zeiss optical company, for a planetarium to house his new planetarium projector,” according to Wikipedia. However it was Fuller’s utopian PR for his domes that fed these 60s and 60s-style experimentations. Welcome to the pleasure dome – though I’m sure these are not what that song is referring to.

The above by standardgrey really made me laugh, even despite an allergy to lolspeak (click on photo to see other amusing judgments passed on this thing). So many of these glass domes were eventually painted for privacy and shade, but this one takes defeating the purpose to a new level. The 1976 dome fire below, “Buckminster’s blaze,” is via standardgrey via mcslo and is originally from the Montreal City Archive. See some funny remarks about this, and about domes in general, here. PS. check out this Buckminster Fuller collapsing table.

Joe Colombo, 1930 – 1971, a prolific Italian architect, designer, artist and filmmaker, produced a substantial, instantly recognizable body of work before dying far too young at 41. 60s space age design owes much of its look to Colombo, who seemed to innately understand the capabilities of new injected molded plastics and other contemporary materials and who innovated with them to explore ergonomics and a kind of  space age psychedelia. The Tube Chair above, like many of his pieces, is an art object as well as furniture. The small selection of his work below is from Flickr.