Invisible Infrastructure: Reinforcing Postwar Gender Inequality in Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower

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In this paper, I argue that the NCT inscribed gendered insJtuJonal thought in its construcJon which maintained male power in the public sphere.Through this construcJon, men reached an economic power unaWainable to women who remained in the home in a prescribed domesJc role.I invesJgate the relaJonship between men, women, and urban space in post-war Japan, exploring how a gender-segregated environment developed, and the ways in which the NCT maintained normaJve gender roles of the period.In order to show how the NCT became an unapologeJcally male space that relegated women to the home, I explore the relaJonship between the construcJon of masculinity and urban space in post-war Japan which did not accommodate women and their domesJc labor.
The NCT is composed of 140 interlocking modular capsules which plug-in to two core concrete shabs [Figure 1].These verJcal shabs extend above the capsules in a rusted brown color and create a striking diagonal line that dramaJcally differs from surrounding buildings.The capsules are asymmetrically stacked on one another with each unit containing only one circular window.While Kurokawa oriented some units towards each side overlooking neighboring buildings, most units face the public street.The NCT adopts modernist aestheJcs of the InternaJonal Style in its use of pilo%s, clean lines, mass-produced materials, and minimal ornamentaJon.
Most prominently, the interior pace emphasized efficiency in its arrangement [Figure 2].Each capsule, modeled aber a storage unit and measuring 108 total sq.b., contained a corner bathroom, fullsized bed, desk, kitcheneWe, and built-in storage compartments.At the Jme, its color television, air condiJoning unit, and Sony entertainment center made it a somewhat technologically advanced dwelling.Kurokawa's design is not at all nostalgic, tradiJonally Japanese, or completely modernist.Its capsule form is brand new and radical.
Architectural scholars view the NCT as an exemplary structure integraJng Metabolist ideas with post-war modernist thought of the 1970s, but liWle aWenJon has been given to the structure outside of its formal, modular design. 2While scholarship has not currently responded to its April 2022 destrucJon, internaJonal media outlets have focused on the structure's status as a cultural heritage object. 3The Tower has yet to be explored in its relaJonship to the male/female dynamics that shaped its iniJal concepJon.The NCT is an important structure following the Metabolist philosophy laid out in the 1960 manifesto Metabolism: The Proposals for New Urbanism produced by the Metabolism Movement to which Kurokawa belonged.Scholarship on the Metabolist Movement is oben in conversaJon with InternaJonal and Global Modernism and analyzed in comparison to Western architecture rather than as a unique cultural product of Japan's post-war period. 4Architects belonging to the Metabolism Movement are not oben explored individually and, instead, figures like Kenzo Tange are largely discussed to represent the enJre group. 5This paper challenges these established noJons by centering gender in the creaJon of the NCT and Kurokawa as an architect and arbiter of architectural thought.
The "salaryman" has gained significant scholarly aWenJon since the 1970s as feminist theory has been integrated and popularized in the overall field of art and architectural history. 6However, architectural analysis incorporaJng a feminist or gender focus has been largely ignored in scholarship, especially when analyzing Modern Architecture.Feminist urban scholars have largely led the charge in discussing the gendered aspects of the built environment and called aWenJon to the ways public and domesJc spaces restrict female parJcipaJon.7Early discussions of the salaryman are dependent upon the role of the housewife as she is necessary in shaping this male idenJty, yet architectural analysis has failed in examining the spaJal relaJonship between the housewife and urban architecture in maintaining the salaryman dynamic. 8

Japanese Metabolism
In 1960, Japanese architect Kenzo Tange revealed his Plan for Tokyo, 1960-Toward a Structural Reorganiza%on at the World Design Congress in Tokyo which sought to regulate urban growth, traffic, and land shortages.Tange's radical plan featured a linear series of interlocking loops expanding Tokyo across the bay and introduced the Metabolist idea of the "city as process" to the internaJonal architectural world [Figure 3].InternaJonal architects reacted overwhelmingly posiJvely to Tange's plan at the World Design Congress, which they saw as a radical architecture that "impose [d] a new physical order" challenging previous spaJal models. 9uropean and North American modern architects had largely accepted and experimented with the idea of the building as a machine aber Le Corbusier's infamous claim in 1923 that "a house is a machine for living," which guided modern architectural design for most of the twenJeth century. 10Tange, along with a group of Japanese architects who called themselves the Metabolists, rejected Le Corbusier's idea of likening a house to a machine and instead, likened the city to an organic process epitomized in their claim of the "city as process." Before Tange revealed his 1960 Tokyo Plan, the Metabolists published their design manifesto Metabolism 1960-the Proposals for New Urbanism, which laid out the "city as process" philosophy that ciJes, like biological processes, were unstable and dynamic, and needed to be reflected in the architecture. 11Although Tange was never named as a member of the group, he served as a mentor to the Metabolists, legiJmized the group through his naJonal standing in Japan, and implemented Metabolist philosophy in his Tokyo Plan. 12 Japanese architects Kiyonori Kikutake, Masato Otaka, Fumihiko Maki, Noriaki Kurokawa, Kisho Kurokawa, and architectural criJc Noboru Kawazor were among those professionals who belonged to the Metabolist movement and promoted Metabolist philosophy and design principles in their architecture and wriJngs.
Beyond experimenJng with form and urban plans, the Metabolists used modern architecture as a tool for naJon-building to communicate with local and internaJonal audiences that Japan was prosperous, innovaJve, and modern.In this sense, "modern" can be understood as meaning industrially, technologically, and economically advanced.A desire to rebuild Japan emerged aber the war with Europe, North America, and Egypt uJlizing variaJons of modern architecture to achieve modernity status.For instance, Japan experimented with modern architecture as a naJon-building tool in Tange's Hiroshima Peace Memorial built aber the war to honor Japanese history, promote naJonalism, and serve as a symbol of modernity [Figure 3]. 13 The NCT can be understood within this context-as a naJon-building project that sought to celebrate Japan as a center of industry and modernity.
Very few Metabolist projects were realized, but Kurokawa's NCT was one of the few that manifested Metabolist ideas in its modular form, materials, and verJcality.Kurokawa considered the modular boxes that makeup the living quarters as following the "city as process" philosophy, because he designed them to be replaced every twenty-five years to suit the growing, transformaJve nature of society and urban space.14While modernists like Le Corbusier, Adolf Loos, and Walter Gropius explored the modular form in their architecture, they did not recognize architecture's capacity to become obsolete due to the changing nature of society like the Metabolists foresaw.
The NCT used materials such as metal and reinforced concrete which were being used by global modernists during the 1970s as efficient, low-cost materials that produced strong buildings. 15The Metabolists used the same materials as other global modernists but appropriated them differently.Materials became one way to address the impermanence of structures.The Metabolists were extremely interested in the concepts of Jme and renewal, arguing for the replacement of capsules and their materials every twenty-five years to extend the capsule's use. 16Impermanence, renewal, and adaptaJon are all concepts found in tradiJonal Shinto and Buddhist philosophy widely pracJced across Japan. 17Metabolists recognized the tradiJonal element of Jme within structures like the NCT, but showcased it through a new, modernist form like the capsule.
AddiJonally, the verJcality of the Tower is also very much in line with modernist skyscrapers appearing throughout the United States in the twenJeth century.However, Metabolists saw the verJcal structure as a tool primarily for urban growth.While skyscrapers like Daniel Burnham's Fuller Building (1902) and William van Alen's Chrysler Building (1931) were more interested in becoming a monument and defying heights through modern materials, the NCT was verJcal so it could grow upwards to accommodate future capsules if needed. 18Together, the NCT's modular form, materials, and verJcality reflected the "city as process" thought and allowed the Metabolists to evolve modernist design principles for a major city like Tokyo.While Tange's 1960 Plan put the Metabolists on the map with internaJonal modernist architects and criJcs, Kurokawa's NCT cemented the group's importance in the field by the mid-1970s.

Housing the Salaryman and the Housewife
Nam Utopian architecture developed as a post-war response across the world and sought to accommodate idealisJc living condiJons that created a sense of social, economic, and poliJcal equality.Mostly envisioned through suburban town planning, projects like Sayed Karim's Nasr City in Cairo, Egypt (1960s) and Le Corbusier's Unité d'HabitaJon in Marseilles, France (1952) were among two utopian models designed under a vision of urban renewal that uplibed communiJes through housing.Major projects took on a socialist tone, but many developed to suit a specific economic class and their material and social needs. 19While utopian architecture seeks to create nearly perfect condiJons for its inhabitants, recent scholarship adopJng a Marxist angle has addressed the ways it excludes lower socio-economic classes and promotes racial segregaJon. 20topian architecture is characterized by its vision and ability to transgress a society through the building and its ameniJes, which Kurokawa pracJced in his design of the NCT.However, rather than designing a utopian model that accommodated a general urban populaJon in need of post-war housing, Torizō Watanabe, manager of the real estate company Nakagin Mansion CorporaJon, hired Kurokawa to create residenJal apartments that appealed to the growing "salaryman" role that, by the 1970s, became an aspiraJonal model for Japanese society. 21Kurokawa, a master of funcJonal design, used Watanabe's commission to create a utopian model for Japan's salarymen which he expected to act as a prototype for future housing developments.
The sarar man or the "salaryman" is a male Japanese white-collar worker; this figure developed in the mid-twenJeth century, and the "salaryman" acted as the main financial support for his family. 22The postwar idea that a ciJzen should be useful to one's economic society in service to the country manifested itself in the role of the salaryman, which allowed men to feel they were serving both their family and Japan.Kurokawa envisioned the NCT as a utopian space that accommodated the salaryman lifestyle.CorporaJons expected the salaryman to work long days to advance Japan's economy-one considered to be thriving-and extend that moJvaJon to the evening by meeJng with coworkers and potenJal businessmen. 23These expectaJons resulted in the demand for structures like the NCT that sought to be a second home to the salaryman.Rather than commuJng back into the suburbs aber a long working day, he could instead own a convenient second home in the city, only a few blocks away from his office.The small, single living space of the NCT was convenient to the salaryman, providing an accessible place for him within the business district-where salarymen were overwhelmingly concentrated-to sleep and recharge for another day of supporJng both Japan's economy and his family.
The salaryman was strictly relegated to both urban space and a male body.Scholars have historically characterized the urban environment as "masculine" due to the concentraJon of men in power in its space. 24himbashi, the center of industry in the 1970s, fell into this masculine categorizaJon.According to Tomoko Hidaka, the salaryman became the dominant paradigm of masculinity from the late 1960s unJl the bursJng of the economic bubble in the 1990s, which shibed Japan's societal constructs. 25Although women in various social classes-especially those occupying lower classes-worked throughout and aber the war, stepping into roles previously occupied by men, women were ulJmately dismissed as parJcipants in Japan's corporate work force in favor of relegaJng them to the home. 26he "suburban housewife" developed in conjuncJon with the salaryman idenJty and served as the harmonious companion to the husband.In fact, Sociologist Daphne Spain argues that the housewife made the salaryman/breadwinner imagery possible, because it rendered women invisible in the home and made women reliant on men for economic stability. 27The salaryman was dependent on his wife for domesJc responsibiliJes such as cleaning, childcare, cooking, and general home maintenance which prevented her from working outside of the home.ResponsibiliJes in the home were not only restricted to housework but expanded into keeping the family's budget and maintaining an understanding of general pricing to distribute income appropriately. 28arxist feminist scholars point out that the division of household labor by which men produce and women reproduce is at the center of the patriarchal capitalist city. 29While men's labor is public, visible, and paid, women's household labor is private, invisible, and unpaid which reinforces gender inequaliJes in and out of home.Keeping the housewife restricted to the home through the salaryman/housewife relaJonship was socially and economically necessary to maintain men in power.By chasing a vision of utopian society that served men and capitalism, Kurokawa parJcipated in the erasure of women from the urban space and reinforced the city as a place only for men in service to the economy.
The salaryman idenJty was also Jed to the "nuclear family" model that developed as a hegemonic postwar response to familial structure across the world.The nuclear family framed the male as the "breadwinner" and dominant patriarch who had a wife and several children.In this way, men controlled both public (corporate work life) and private (domesJc) spheres.Film, literature, television, and newspapers adverJsed the nuclear family model to lower and middle-classes as an aspiraJonal family structure that miJgated post-war social and financial anxieJes. 30Men and women turned to marriage and the ideal of the nuclear family for stability which society saw as moral and in line with contemporary societal norms.
Architects inscribed these gendered expectaJons associated with the salaryman and housewife on the urban and suburban landscape.With the salaryman in the urban environment and the housewife contained within the domesJc environment, a gender-segregated society solidified.Molony, Theiss, and Choi argue that this gender-segregated environment that resulted from the separaJon of men in the public sphere from women relegated to the domesJc sphere, transmiWed the idea that "men were more producJve than women in the workplace and that it was wasteful to squander men's Jme in the home." 31Such ideas did not emerge in the 1970s, but had their roots in Japanese history.
With the salaryman in the urban public sphere and the wife in the suburban domesJc sphere, a gendersegregated society solidified that mirrored earlier societal structures of Japan's Edo (1603-1867) and Meiji Periods (1868-1912).The two periods placed men in urban environments as leaders of the economy while women remained at home, framed as subordinate, supporJve, and distant.Thus, the male/female dynamics in the salaryman/housewife relaJonship did not move away from former societal structures in a dramaJc way and, instead, patriarchal relaJons in the private realm of the family remained a barrier to women's public parJcipaJon.
In the Edo Period (1615-1868), the city of Edo housed imperial men and their male entourage, while the Shogun displaced his wife and their children as a mode of control and a way to maintain servitude and obedience [Figure 5]. 32Through this familial separaJon, Edo became a "city of men" which very much echoes 1970s Tokyo and its abundance of salarymen.The Edo Period also saw the introducJon of Confucian social order which favored ideals of women in service to their husband, created a social hierarchy, and-above all-fostered loyalty and obedience to Japan.
A similar relaJonship of women in service to men conJnued to solidify during the Meiji Period (1868-1912) when the monarchy rebranded the female empress and the male emperor as the dominant example of a male/female relaJonship. 33Displayed on the naJonal scale, this relaJonship sought to frame the wife as subordinate, supporJve, distant, and as the ulJmate counterpart to the husband.Inspired by the model of the imperial household, Japan embraced this idealized vision of a male/female relaJonship which was later solidified in the 1970s salaryman/housewife relaJonship and spaJalized in modernist structures like the NCT.

Rejec<ng Women in the Nakagin Capsule Tower
Societal norms, as previously discussed, dictated that wives of salarymen were to be in the home and responsible for domesJc labor.Middle-class women, especially the wives of salarymen, were not expected to work.Transferring the role of the housewife to a capsule within the NCT, the wife was unable to fulfill societal expectaJons.While early and contemporary feminist scholars conJnue to agree that gender is socially constructed, feminist urban scholars and sociologists also agree that space is socially constructed. 34According to Henri Lefebvre, spaces reflect social norms and embody gender relaJons. 35he NCT's compact design did not funcJonally accommodate the housewife's childcare expectaJons.Middle-class societal norms dictated that salarymen's wives perform daily childcare in the home.Children who were not at school age were also confined to the household with the mother during the day, and their acJviJes were dependent on what she had access to.Utopian housing models throughout the twenJeth century considered this arrangement, adding various faciliJes to housing models that allowed women to both sJmulate their children through physical acJvity and remain close to home.For instance, Le Corbusier's Unité d'HabitaJon in Marseilles, France (1952), was an early example of a utopian living model that suited middle-class families and prioriJzed an in-house childcare facility, playground, swimming pool, and roof terrace. 36he NCT contained no social spaces or childcare faciliJes, suggesJng that the space only wished to accommodate men.Earlier utopian housing models considered the need for childcare faciliJes.In-house childcare, playgrounds, swimming pools, communal spaces, and roof terraces allowed women to provide childcare outside of the home while remaining nearby.Because no such faciliJes existed in the NCT, the housewife may be tempted to seek childcare or social faciliJes within the city.However, the NCT's locaJon in the business district limited access to public parks, museums, and social spaces.While the housewife may be tempted to seek childcare or social faciliJes within the city, the locaJon of the NCT in the business district limits access to public parks, museums, and social spaces.The NCT failed to provide faciliJes and women who sought equivalent accommodaJons were oben held back by the threats of urban life.
Sociologist Anne Imamura discusses the challenges and anxieJes middle-class housewives faced while living in Tokyo's urban apartment complexes with children during 1977-1978. 37 While urban modes of transportaJon were a parJcularly common challenge with children, the housewives mainly expressed fear over the perceived "dangers" of urban life due to the dominaJng male populaJon. 38In parJcular, a fear of one's physical safety and the threat of sexual violence kept women from not only pursuing employment, but visiJng urban areas.
Pay inequality further discouraged women from joining the workforce. 39The few women who did occupy posiJons within the corporate world remained limited to supporJng administraJve roles with no real path to a higher posiJon.Women gained economic power and public presence through these roles, but nowhere near enough to challenge the male-dominated environment.Together, this mulJtude of fears inhibited how women interacted with the city and prevented them from pursuing employment and outside social acJviJes.
An iniJal sketch of the capsule's design may suggest how Kurokawa understood women's role within the space [Figure 6].This image, produced at the beginning stages of the NCT's design, shows an interior sketch of a capsule and the inner hallway leading to the capsule's entrance.A man is pictured reclining on the bed, his bare feet stretched outward and his hands behind his head as it rests upon a pillow.In the hallway, a woman walks up a set of stairs to presumably enter the capsule while wearing a dress fully covering her body and carrying a purse.
Both figures likely exist as tools to scale the viewer's percepJon, but the woman's behavior and locaJon is markedly different from the man's, showing a clear gender division.The woman is not enjoying the space like the man whose hands rest behind his head and spread out across the bed in a relaxed posiJon.She is not even occupying the capsule and is depicted climbing the stairs rather than as present in the living space.It is unlikely that Kurokawa, under the gendered expectaJons of the 1970s, would have represented the woman lying in bed, avoidant of any domesJc duJes, in the way the male is depicted.

Conclusion
The salaryman/housewife relaJonship persisted as a perceived aWainable middle-class dynamic in Japan unJl the 1990s when Japan's economic crash changed social standards around who could work and caused Kurokawa, Metabolists, and Japanese modern architects to once again rethink urban housing.The NCT in the 1990s economy became obsolete and impracJcal as a place solely for salarymen which led to it being marketed for other uses beyond domesJc space.It took a financial disaster for the NCT to adverJse its space to other populaJons outside of the salaryman.When new residents did appear in the 1990s and 2000s, many of whom were female visual arJsts and musicians, they drasJcally changed the space's defining elements, removing builtin cabinets and outdated technology. 40In many cases, residents removed the bed to accommodate dedicated studio spaces.
Kurokawa believed the NCT, as a utopian architecture, possessed the capacity to improve urban life.However, it preserved the salaryman/housewife relaJonship that maintained normaJve gender roles and prevented Japan from socially evolving to include women in their workforce.Thus, insJtuJonalizing the legiJmacy of gender inequality on a new modern architecture expected to rebuild Japan.
Metabolist philosophy adhered so closely to biological, mathemaJcal, and scienJfic theories that gender went largely ignored as an element to consider by architects chiefly interested in challenging modernist theories, forms, and concepts.Too oben modern utopian architectural projects respond to formal elements like material accessibility, mass producJon, and efficiency.Yet, they fail to anJcipate changing societal relaJonships.The NCT complies with decades of insJtuJonal thought that restricts women to the home and maintains male power in the public sphere.The Nakagin Capsule Tower reveals how the built environment possessed the power to detract from women's opportuniJes outside of the home during the 1970s, affecJng how women lived their lives and the range of choices and possibiliJes open to them.

Figure 4 :
Figure 4: Kenzo Tange, Hiroshima Peace Memorial, Tokyo, Japan, 1945, photo by Yasuhiro Ishimoto.Courtesy of The Museum of Fine Arts Houston.

Figure 5 :
Figure 5: Folding Screen DepicKng Only a Male PopulaKon at Edo Castle, Edo, Japan, 1847.Courtesy of NaKonal Museum of Natural History.