Nagelhaus
In collaboration with Thomas Demand Zurich, Switzerland 2007–2010
Client: Stadt Zurich Competition, first prize
This project, in collaboration with the artist Thomas Demand, was the winner of a competition for a major public art commission in the City of Zurich. The site is located at Escher Wyss Platz, an important and unusually messy part of the city’s transport infrastructure. The project coincided with the restoration of the 1960s Hardbrücke road viaduct and the construction of a new tram line. Escher Wyss Platz is a former industrial area undergoing dramatic transformation, with substantial new commercial developments, cultural institutions, and residential buildings.
The project proposed to locate two modest buildings under the road viaduct, which would appear as archaeological fragments of a street that stood there previously. The image for these buildings refers to the ‘Stubborn Nail’ – a story from Chongqing, of private owners who held out against all odds in their small house, while developers demolished the city around them. The two buildings contain a Chinese restaurant, public toilets, and a kiosk, and are constructed from painted prefabricated timber inside and out.
The timber boards would have a milled surface, to avoid any sense of handcrafting. It was important that the buildings would be only an abstract and approximate image of the original, changing the scale and the material, and using as their reference only poor-resolution photographs of the original building, obtained from the internet.
The project stopped following a public referendum, in which a narrow majority voted against it, objecting to the level of funding for a public work of art. Instead, a full-scale fragment was constructed and exhibited in the 2011 Venice Art Biennale.








Drawings

Site plan

Elevations of Escher Wyss Platz

South east elevation

South west elevation

North west elevation

Ground floor plan

Gallery floor plan
References

Chongqing, China, 2007


Annie Hall, Woody Allen, 1977



Posters for and against the Nagelhaus project
Related news
M Leuven presents a major retrospective of the work of the artist Thomas Demand, featuring two works made by the artist in collaboration with Caruso St John: The unrealised Nagelhaus and the soon to be built pavilion at the headquarters of fabric manufacturers Kvadrat in Ebeltoft, Denmark.
Credits
Location
Zurich, Switzerland
Date
2007–2010
Client
Stadt Zurich
Area
250 m²
Status
Competition, first prize; cancelled following a referendum
Collaborating artist
Thomas Demand
Caruso St John Architects
Adam Caruso, Peter St John
Project architect
Neslihan Aydogan
Project team
Pablo Donet, Adam Gielniak, Emily Keyte, Michael Schneider
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