NAGELHAUS THOMAS DEMAND & CARUSO ST JOHN
The architectural firm Caruso St John was founded in London by Adam Caruso and Peter St John in 1990 . In their designs they pay much attention to the context in which a building will be built , and they frequently refer to architectural traditions from other eras and cultures . This is why their buildings cannot be tied to a single specific style , shape or ideology .
Thomas Demand and Caruso St John together designed Nagelhaus ( 2010 ), a reference to ‘ the most stubborn nail in history ’ – a house in Chongqing , China that made world news when the private owners of the small house unexpectedly resisted developers who were planning to build a shopping centre in the area . All surrounding buildings were demolished and the house remained alone in an empty construction site .
In 2008 , Caruso St John and Thomas Demand won an open call for a redesign of the Escher-Weiss-Platz in Zurich . Their proposal was to make a reconstruction of the Nagelhaus beneath a highway overpass , and to give it the function of a 24 / 7 restaurant . The right-wing party SVP , however , tried to stop construction , causing the project to become subject of a referendum . Eventually it was cancelled altogether . The house , then , elicited protest two times : in China there was resistance to its demolition , in Switzerland to its construction .
Nagelhaus was on view at the Venice Biennale ( 2010 ) and is now on display again in M . The installation consists of the reconstruction of the house , a brief sequence of filmed media images , illustrations from proposals for the original design and a slideshow with historical images of oriental-inspired pavilions on the European mainland . The installation raises questions on innovation and preservation , on protest and urban development , as well as on the western attitude vis-à-vis China .
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