CITY Issue 56

For more information, go to www.capsuleinn.com, www.yotel.com, www.easyhotel.com, and www.thepodhotel.com CURRENT HOTEL AND LIFESTYLE DESIGN IS MORE LIKELY TO ORIGINATE IN A MARKETING DEPARTMENT THAN THE ACADEMY. ///// / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / At London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports, Yotel’s cabins offer the closest approximation in utilitarian purpose (if not design) of Tokyo’s Capsule Inn Akihabara (opposite). the contempo a y, boutique-t ained mind ecoils. Next comes bemusement coupled with a touch of condescension: oh, those wacky Japanese! But these inte p etations — both st ictly Weste n impo ts — miss the point enti ely. The ﬁ st capsule inn, designed by legenda y a chitect Kisho Ku okawa, who died last Octobe , opened in Osaka in to ﬁ ll the needs of a wo kfo ce expected to log longe and longe hou s and fo ced to live fu the and fu the f om the oﬃce. The soul-c ushing p ice of Japanese u ban eal estate foste s a commute cultu e to ival me ica’s. (Tokyo’s Impe ial Palace, the most o cited example, is a . -squa e-mile plot valued du ing the height of the s p ope ty boom as equal to all of the eal estate in Califo nia.) But Japan’s dominant mode of t anspo tation is the t ain, not the ca . So, what to do if you’ve wo ked too late — o , almost as likely, d ank too much — and missed the midnight depa tu e of you last t ain home? Tokyo taxis a e exo bitant — now (about . ) just to get in. It’s much mo e aﬀo dable to stash you clothes in a locke , take a bath, have a ciga ette, and hole up in you own pe sonal, television-equipped cocoon. t , to , ( – ), it’s the cheapest ho izontal space you’ e likely to ﬁ nd in the met o a ea. Ku okawa’s ea ly a chitectu al philosophy evolved a ound conceptions of the o ganic and the modula . The demands of mode n u ban envi onments a e eve changing, the efo e any solution to these demands should be simila ly elastic. His most famous ea ly design, the Nakagin Capsule Towe in Tokyo’s Ginza dist ict, p eceded the Osaka Capsule Inn by seven yea s and featu ed p efab icated modula apa tment units that could be combined o econﬁgu ed in acco dance with thei tenants’ equi ements. (In a sad conﬁ mation of Ku okawa’s theo y of u ban impe manence, the Capsule Towe is now scheduled fo demolition.) Like the Nagakin building, the o iginal capsule hotel ﬁt into a b oad theoetical f amewo k called the Metabolist Movement, which p omoted ﬂexible st uctu es that could be changed easily with the o ganic g owth of cities. Howeve , design and a chitectu e “Movements” (with a capital M) have a limited shelf life, each viable only until something newe , bolde , and bette funded comes along. (By the s, even Ku okawa had moved on to something called Symbiosis.) et the best p oducts of these movements outlive thei theo etical f amewo k and become pa t of the eve yday landscape, simply because they answe a pa ticula question o ﬁ ll a pa ticula ole bette than anything else. The capsule hotel is one of these p oducts, as o dina y and nea ly indispensable a pa t of the u ban Japanese landscape as the the heated toilet seat o the vending machine that dispenses f esh button-down shi ts and ties. Cu ent hotel and lifestyle design is mo e likely to o iginate in a ma keting depa tment than the academy, to add ess p oﬁt ma gins athe than u ban sustainability. This might be the clea est diﬀe ence between Japan’s capsule hotels and thei ecent Eu opean and me ican imitato s. The fo me is an elegantly simple solution to a local p oblem, while the latte is la gely an exe cise in ootless aesthetics and global ma keting. Boutique hotels cate to t avele s who want an expe ience; t ue Japanese capsule hotels cate to locals, and a night spent in one is almost always an accident. backpacke app op iation of the pod concept, such as easyHotel, is an attempt to sp inkle magic Japanesedesign dust on what is essentially an up-ma ket hostel. nd in New o k, the Pod Hotel’s boutique eb anding of the capsule aesthetic is even mo e disingenuous: the Japanese capsule inn is essentially an egalita ian design p edicated on needs not wants, while boutique ma keting depends upon a sense of diﬀe entiation and aﬀo dable exclusivity. I’ll put it this way: The e is nothing t endy about the g eat equalize of no-f ills public baths. Of all the new capsule hotels, Simon Wood oﬀe’s otel is most akin in theo y to the o iginals. This isn’t su p ising given his ea lie success with O! Sushi, a ventu e that b ought the concept of aiten-zushi, o conveyo belt sushi, to the CITY TY 49 http://www.capsuleinn.com http://www.easyhotel.com http://www.yotel.com http://www.thepodhotel.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CITY Issue 56

City Issue 56 Contents Letter from City: Re: Design Our Friends: The Faces Behind the Stories Action: What's New, What's Hot, What's Now Wanted: Olympic Bound? Button Up City Moment: The Writing’s on the Wall How We Live: Concrete Jungle Fast Food: Bites of Spring The Amused Bouche: Blueprint Special In Rouge: Hero Worship Fashion: Welcome to the Boys’ Club Travel: My Pod Architecture: Out of the Blue Design: Home Remedies Tokyo Rising Zen and the Art of Catholicism Think Big Face Value Runaways Intimate Relations Where to Buy It: Store Locations Icon: The Infinity Pool

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