For the 2010 Venice Biennale Caruso St John and Thomas Demand are presenting a full scale fragment of the Nagelhaus, a project currently being undertaken in Zurich.
The project locates two modest buildings under the road viaduct. They appear as archaeological fragments of a street that stood there previously, or as structures carefully tailored to fit the precise topography of the heavy concrete structure of the Hardbrücke. 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. For what, in the end, was demolished in China, the City of Zurich has generously found a place.
The cycle that began in Chongqing in 2007, a victory for individual rights over the interests of big business and big government, is repeated in Zurich in 2010. The ‘Stubborn Nail’ must face one last battle in a City of Zurich referendum planned for the 26th September.
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