ARQ 113 | Condiciones de cambio / Conditions for change 
(April 2023)


Stephannie Fell (ed.); several authors
Journal issue; Softcover
20.6 x 27 cm | 148 pp.
Spanish / English



Over the span of six months during 2022, the 140 individual pods of  Tokyo’s Nakagin Tower briefly flew across the sky for the last time, as a crane detached them from the cores before  demolishing the building. A landmark of the Metabolist movement, the Nakagin was designed to change with the city and its inhabitants (Kurokawa, 1972) —a building of  replaceable pods and serviceable parts, an epitome of retrofitting. Following a decade of efforts to save it, and even after being listed in 2006, the building was demolished last year. Among the reasons cited for its demolition were several concerns: repair costs, the presence of asbestos in the building, how it no longer met Japan’s seismic regulations, and its “inefficient use of prime real estate in central  Tokyo” (Lin, 2011; Oshima, 2020; McCurry, 2023). In other words, technology, health standards, building codes, and economic pressures on its urban context, had all  changed much faster than the pods could be replaced. A building designed for adaptation seemed very unfit for change.


“The current political and ecological climate demand that we treat change not so much as an individual alternative, but as a collective necessity if we are to survive in and with this planet.”


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Ediciones ARQ
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Fono: +56 22 6865569 Lun-Vie 10:00 a 18:30 hrs editorial@edicionesarq.cl

Revista ARQ recibe el apoyo del Fondo de Publicaciones Periódicas de la Vicerrectoría de Investigación de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile a través del Fondo de Publicaciones de Revistas Científicas | © 1980-2023 Ediciones ARQ | Todos los derechos reservados ︎ ︎



Ediciones ARQ
El Comendador 1936, Providencia, Santiago de Chile
Fono: +56 9 9995 5044 (número temporal) Lun-Vie 10:00 a 18:30 hrs editorial@edicionesarq.cl

Revista ARQ recibe el apoyo del Fondo de Publicaciones Periódicas de la Vicerrectoría de Investigación de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile a través del Fondo de Publicaciones de Revistas Científicas | © 1980-2022 Ediciones ARQ | Todos los derechos reservados ︎