Holdout (architecture)

Nail House (Chinese:钉子 户, Pinyin: dīngzihù ) is a Chinese neologism for a building whose owners refuse to sell their home for a new building, mostly larger commercial buildings.

The term is a pun of the Chinese construction industry. The house is compared with a nail sticking out of a hard piece of wood and can not be smashed with a hammer. The owners are sometimes colloquially called " stubborn nails ".

Historical Background

During the communist era, the right to private ownership of land was abolished. The central government had all the basic and certain managers on policy. Individuals could be forced by an administrative to leave their land. After the reforms in economic conditions since the late 1990s and the subsequent economic upturn private construction companies, department stores, hotels and other commercial buildings began to build in the urban centers of China. The previous occupier of premises in the new land have to relocate it. The construction companies offer the owners mostly low compensation payments, because the fabric of the houses is hardly valuable or alternative housing options in other regions cost very little. If residents refuse or try to achieve higher compensation payments, powerful construction companies can use the local administration or courts convened to expropriate the owners and distribute. In some cases, residents were jailed or intimidated by thugs on false charges.

More recently, the private property and the need for the owner to be accepted in China to earn money through capital gains when a building to make way for a new building. Likewise, it is recognized that the land owner does not have to sell. The discontent among the population grows; Construction companies are accused of using corrupt government officials to acquire land illegally.

Due to the widespread positive assessment of private property in the public opinion, the government first modern law enacted in March 2007 on this subject. It prohibits the expropriation of land, unless it was due to a large public interest. The law strengthens the position of the nail house owner, but does not answer the question of when a private building in the public interest.

Examples

The history of some nail houses were by the Chinese press widely known. In one case in Chongqing, which even caused a stir internationally, families refused for two years to sell their land for the construction of a shopping center. The building was for three generations the residence of the family and stood in a street in which earlier had found many small restaurants and takeaways. In order to break the resistance, the construction companies clipping off the energy and water and lifted a ten-meter deep pit at the nail house. In response, the owners broke into the grounds and retook the building, hoisted by a Chinese flag on the roof. Yang Wu, a local martial arts champion, built a staircase to her house from nunchakus and threatened to beat anyone his plans got in its way. His wife Wu Ping, a restaurant owner who is opening a restaurant planned on the ground floor of the house. This project met with great interest and it was followed by many interviews in various newspapers. The owners of the nail house beat an offer of 3.5 million yuan, but were in 2007 an agreement with the construction company.

Another famous nail house is located in Changsha. A shopping center was built around the nail house, the house itself is now in its courtyard. A homeowner in Shenzhen were paid ten to twenty million yuan, so he sells his house, which should give way to a seven -story building. The 439 -meter-high Kingkey Finance Tower very close to a decade earlier had cost only one-tenth of the paid transfer fee. The residents waited several months before an official evacuation order expelled him from the plot. He eventually became victims of threats and blackmail by the high severance payment.

Media attention

Many nail houses were unusually high attention in the Chinese press. The incident in Chongqing was first made ​​public by a blogger who described it under the title " Coolest nail house in history". Then it attacked the major media, including national newspapers in China and it became a national sensation. 85 % of participants in a vote on the largest infotainment web portal in China sina.com sympathized with the couple who own it and only 15% with the construction company. The Chinese government finally intervened and forbade it to report on this incident. The well-known anti-government blogger Zhou Shuguang traveled from his home in Hunan by train to Chongqing to report exclusively on the incident can. Travel costs were taken over by readers of his blog. He wrote under the pseudonym " zola " and interviewed the victims and onlookers. Some newspapers circumventing the reporting ban sent. The Chinese edition of Sports Illustrated about provoked with a cover, which was a well-known snooker players in torn nail houses.

Similar incidents in other countries

Internationally

State media in China pointed out that the nail house phenomenon is not confined to China. So there were similar cases in the U.S., the UK, Germany ( Kursdorf ( Schkeuditz ) at Leipzig / Halle airport) and in Japan. As an example, often served to Tokyo Narita Airport in Tokyo. Some families refuse to today, to give way to the airport, although runways have been built around their homes.

Switzerland

Another nail home is in the district of Zurich - West of the city of Zurich. The inhabitants of a 1893 built apartment house, defended themselves against the project of the Canton of Zurich demolish the house for a new access road. The Federal Administrative Court in St Gallen ruled in favor of the residents, who for 8 years resisted the canton, and commits the Cantonal administration to plan the Quartier new connection.

The event was also addressed by representatives of the arts and culture scene and was the catalyst of discussions and gatherings on the topic of gentrification in the city of Zurich. The house contributes towards the Cantonal Pfingstweidstrasse the inscription " Resistance" as a pun on behind them exploiting dividend " Renaissance Tower ". Also, the mural "Network " by Pierre Haubensak part of the nail house.

Nail houses and counterparts in arts and culture

• The U.S. children's book The Little House from 1942 is about the story of a woman whose house is to make way for a new building. To a very similar story is in the children's book Serafin and his miracle machine of the French comic book artist and illustrator Philippe Fix by 2006.
• In the film, Louis and his alien cabbages (1981 ) Louis de Funès denied the sale and demolition of his farm, so no shopping mall is built. At the end of the courtyard is surrounded by a huge pit. The entire property is brought by aliens on their home planet.
• The Disney movie Herbie ride (1972 ) is the resistance of the owner of a former fire station in San Francisco, which is to make way for a new building.
• The Pixar film Up (2009 ) is about a nail house counterpart.
• The redesign of this Escher- Wyss -Platz in Zurich a replica of the nail house in Chongqing was planned. It should make it appear to have been before the hardware bridge there and be not left the bridge. The project was rejected in the electorate with 51.3 % No votes on 26 September 2010. - Zurich today has a real nail house: The residential building at the turbine 12-14 in Zurich -West. The house is a planned road straightening in the way that private homeowners fight back against the expropriation. The case is now in federal court. On the wall of the building, the artist Pierre Haubensak ( Zurich ) has one of its attached networks. The temporary work of art was created in 2011 as part of the KiOR ( public art ) in Zurich. 2012, the firewall in the project " Art and the City " was incorporated.

The artist Pierre Haubensak at the firewall turbine 12-14 in Zurich -West ( KiöR 2011) network.