Kurokawa attached the building with 140 removable capsules to promote modifications to the structure over time, theoretically improving its capacity to adjust to the rapidly changing conditions of the post-industrial society. When the building first opened in March of 1972, it was advertised in the media to signal "the dawn of the capsule age." At the time, Kurokawa had additional capsule projects planned in the coming years and predicted the mass production of these living units.
This prototype for a new lifestyle for the 21st Century ultimately proved to be an exception rather than the rule. The Nakagin Capsule Tower in fact became the last of its kind completed in the world. Furthermore, the building has never undergone the process of regeneration during the 40 years of existence. None of the original capsules have ever been replaced, even though Kurokawa intended them to sustain a lifespan of only 25 years.
Noritaka Minami
Organ Armor
(Linking to secondary source because primary source's web site is intolerable.)
Area Man stole brains from museum, sold them for cash
Brain sting! "Skullduggery"!David Charles, a 21-year-old Indianapolis resident, is accused of breaking into the Indiana Medical History Museum multiple times this year and stealing jars of human brain tissue and other preserved material. A tipster who paid hundreds of dollars on the online auction site helped bring the organ entrepreneurism to an end.
A San Diego man who had bought six jars of human brain tissue off eBay for $600, plus $70 shipping, called the museum after noticing labels on the containers and suspecting some kind of skulduggery, according to court documents.
Police set up a sting on Dec. 16. The eBay middleman arranged a meeting in the parking lot of a Southside Dairy Queen with Charles, who the day before stole 60 jars of human tissue from the museum, according to authorities and court documents.
"Wanted for the murder of San Francisco"
