(Shogun) castles in the sky

I like Homebase’s new television advert, with the interlocking shipping containers peeling away to reveal interior design, that is a tribute to the Japanese Metabolism architectural movement.  It is a coincidence that the driving force behind this philosophical-structural cause, Kiyonori Kikutake, died last month, since advertising campaigns are planned so far in advance.  It is especially poignant since the inspiration for the consultants who created the ad - Kurokawa Kisyo’s Capsule Tower built in Tokyo in 1972 and one of the few Metabolist schema actually built - is currently scheduled for demolition.  I remember from the Dorling Kindersley book on Buildings I received when I was eight or some such age, which posited that the Capsule Tower could well be the future of dense inner-cities.  Well, that didn’t exactly pan out.