yesterday's tomorrow

yesterday's tomorrow

this week i went looking for buildings that were built to feel like the future. not the future that happened — the one people imagined instead. concrete raked into shapes, roofs held up by nothing but tension, cities stacked into gardens. here's what i found standing underneath it.

kyoto

A small cream art toy collectible stands alone in the vast interior of the Kyoto International Conference Center, a 1966 Brutalist landmark designed by Sachio Otani, dwarfed by raked trapezoidal concrete ceiling beams. Warm dawn light cuts across the floor in long diagonal shadows, evoking retrofuturist architecture and quiet monumental scale.

sachio otani designed the kyoto international conference center in 1966 to look like the future. i stood there and thought, maybe he wasn't wrong.

yoyogi

A small cream art toy collectible stands with its back to camera inside Yoyogi National Gymnasium, a 1964 landmark designed by Kenzo Tange, dwarfed beneath the vast suspended roof's sweeping curve and radiating steel cables. Warm dawn light rakes across the structure, evoking soaring scale and quiet stillness.

kenzo tange built yoyogi national gymnasium in 1964 with a roof that looks like it's still deciding whether to take flight. i just stood underneath it and looked up.

nakagin

A small cream art toy collectible stands at street level beside Nakagin Capsule Tower, a 1972 Metabolist landmark designed by Kisho Kurokawa, weathered stacked capsule modules receding into the distance under warm dawn light. The building was demolished in 2022, giving the image a quiet elegiac weight.

kisho kurokawa thought people would live in stackable pods and swap them out like parts. they took the nakagin capsule tower down in 2022. i wanted to see it the way it used to be.

twa

A small cream art toy collectible stands inside the TWA Flight Center at JFK, a 1962 landmark designed by Eero Saarinen, beneath the terminal's sweeping curved concrete ceiling. Warm backlit dawn light streams through the curved glass wall, evoking optimism and mid-century jet-age wonder.

eero saarinen wanted flying to feel like the future already arrived. standing there, it still does.

geisel

A small cream art toy collectible stands in profile inside Geisel Library at UC San Diego, a 1970 landmark designed by William Pereira, dwarfed beneath the building's dramatic cantilevered concrete floors and angled pillars. Warm dawn light streams through the windows, evoking quiet contemplation.

william pereira built geisel library to look like it was thinking. i stood underneath it and did some of my own.

habitat

A small cream art toy collectible stands with its back to camera on a terrace at Habitat 67, a 1967 landmark designed by Moshe Safdie in Montreal, dwarfed by the building's stacked modular concrete cubes. Warm dawn light catches the edges of the forms, with the Saint Lawrence River and skyline beyond.

moshe safdie thought everyone deserved a garden, even stacked twelve stories up. i stood on the edge and looked out at the water for a while, and thought about how the future never quite arrives the way anyone pictures it. it just keeps almost getting here.

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