Tokyo’s beloved Nakagin Capsule Tower may be getting its speculated second digital life after all thanks to a new metaverse project from the firm of its original designer Kisho Kurokawa Architect and Associates (KKAA) and the NFT platform OpenSea.

In an exclusive collaboration with the LAETOLI Corporation’s KABUKI-X venture, the firm is now auctioning off the rights to reconstruct their founder’s most famous Metabolic work in both the physical and digital realms only a few months removed from the neglected tower’s ongoing demolition, which began formally at the end of April. Bidders will have the chance to reconstruct the tower inside the metaverse and at the global site of their choice using CAD data and a digital model of the tower produced in Revit by design partners BDP.  

Restrictions are limited to the local zoning laws and regulations of the country the holders of the ‘real space’ rights select to build in. This otherwise allows for the potential resale and leasing of the rights to the structure, which BDP says could engender a fitting number of new reconstructions that vary in terms of their size, function, and delimited total number of pods. (The 140 surviving versions of which are also being purchased at auction by various institutions.) 

“We would like to create a society in which cultural values are respected and what people want to see is preserved,” LAETOLI’s Director in Charge, Yoshitaka Kataoka, said in a statement. “By using new technologies such as blockchain and NFT, we believe we have created the possibility of protecting our heritage for future generations.”

Bidding on the rights to both versions starts at 1 ETH (equivalent to about $1,844 USD). The auction closes on October 20th at 12:15 AM EDT.  Kataoka says of the project’s Utopian underpinnings “we hope that this auction will ensure that this historical masterpiece will be rebuilt somewhere in the world by those who value the idea of Metabolism and are able to optimise his design to enhance society.”