Finding out the location	very easy
Access	very hard
Safety	very safe
Risk of being seen	very high
General condition of the place	good
Traces of vandalism	none or very few
Good place for taking pictures?	good
Did you see other people?	very many

Visit date    January 2 2019 at 13 hr
Visit duration    1 hour

Don’t even try it ... Japan is famous for its capsule hotels, a concept where you have a small sleeping area (capsule) and share the common areas with the other guests. Capsule hotels are compact living at its finest. If you haven’t tried it might seem a bit claustrophobic but actually it’s very cosy and smart. I have stayed at many hostels in Europe and compared to a regular bunk bed it’s not that much of a difference. A capsule hotel actually feels safer and more private. I stayed in two different capsule hotels during my travels in Japan (one of them even had a big screen TV, with connecting cords so that I could edit my urbex videos on a big screen!).

Nakagin was one of the first capsule hotels. It was prebuild in the factory and then put together in just 30 days on the location in Tokyo. It was built in 1972 and was the first permanent building of its kind in the world.

The building is composed in two concrete towers, with 11 and 13 floors. Connected to these there are 140 capsules. The capsules can be connected to each other to make a larger space.

This building is one of the few remaining examples of Japanese Metabolism. As Tokyo is one of the worlds most crowded cities it’s not hard to understand how this way of building houses was invented.

1970 Construction started
1972 Nakagin Capsule Tower was finished
2012 30 capsules were still apartments, the others were used as storage or office places and some was left to despair
2017 Some capsules were still available to rent (long waiting list)
2019 My photos were taken. The building looks mostly abandoned but there’s a reception and a few people were still going inside. Once a month there was a (very expensive) guided tour.

Information from Wikipedia.

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More photos on my Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/starkurbex/

Check my URBEX VIDEOS on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrNwPOXjf7eucR82FvJH5Dg



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