Nakagin Capsule Tower: Japanese Metabolist Landmark on the Edge of Destruction

Noritaka Minami is a visual artist based in Chicago. Minami uses photography to examine spaces that exist as anachronisms in the landscape and are overlooked for their significances in understanding contemporary society. He received a BA in Art Practice from the University of California, Berkeley and an MFA in Studio Art from the University of California, Irvine. He is a recipient of grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Illinois Arts Council Agency, Santo Foundation, and Center for Cultural Innovation. Minami’s works are held in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, UCLA Architecture and Urban Design, Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago, and Center for Photography at Woodstock. In 2015, Kehrer Verlag published his monograph titled 1972 – Nakagin Capsule Tower, which received the 2015 Architectural Book Award from the Deutsches Architekturmuseum in Frankfurt, Germany. In 2022, he was commissioned by the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University to document the architectural works of John Andrews for its forthcoming publication Architect of Uncommon Sense. He is currently an Associate Professor of Fine Arts at Loyola University Chicago. He has also taught photography at Harvard University, Wellesley College, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, UC Berkeley, and UC Irvine.

Naomi Pollock is an American architect and author who writes about design and architecture in Japan. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications on both sides of the Pacific, including A+U, Dwell, Jutakutokushu, Kinfolk, Wallpaper*, and Architectural Record for whom she is the Special International Correspondent. In addition, she has written numerous books, including Modern Japanese House, Made in Japan: 100 New Products, Jutaku: Japanese Houses, Sou Fujimoto, and Japanese Design Since 1945: A Complete Sourcebook. She was also the editor of NUNO: Visionary Japanese Textiles. In recognition of her contributions as a journalist and a critic, she was invited into the College of Fellows of The American Institute of Architects in 2018.

John Zukowsky is an architectural and design historian with an earned doctorate from Binghamton University and more than four decades of museum experience. While curator of architecture for The Art Institute of Chicago (1978–2004), he organized a number of award-winning exhibitions and accompanying books. He was chief curator (2005–2009) and then consulting interim vice president-Exhibitions and Interpretation (2011–2012) for New York’s Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. There, he led his team on an award-winning reinstallation and exhibition redesign, as well as the Space Shuttle Enterprise exhibit interpretation. Recently, he was a consultant for exhibitions within the new Chicago Architecture Center (2017–18) and has authored several books, including Building Chicago: The Architectural Masterworks (2016), Architecture-Inside Out (2018), New Military Museums (2019), and A Chronology of Architecture (2020).

Iker Gil is a founding partner at MAS Studio, editor in chief of the nonprofit MAS Context, and executive director of the SOM Foundation. Iker has edited or coedited several books including Radical Logic: On the Work of Ensamble Studio and Shanghai Transforming. He has curated multiple exhibitions including Nocturnal Landscapes, Poured Architecture: Sergio Prego on Miguel Fisac, and BOLD: Alternative Scenarios for Chicago, part of the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial. He was Associate Curator of the US Pavilion for the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale and cocurator of Exhibit Columbus 2020–2021. He was the 2024 Morgenstern Visiting Chairs at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), and the Escola da Cidade (São Paulo).