Nail House in Amsterdam, Netherlands

Nail House is a work of art that is temporarily set up in Amsterdam in 2015 and 2019.

It is a creation of artist Leonard van Munster. He protested with his house against empty, vacant places in the city, while he could not lose his art in public space. Nail House was placed in 2015 at a construction site at the Schinkelhaven. There, a nursing home of the same name had been demolished to make way for new construction. The site was empty for a long time. In 2016, the artist received a message that he had to remove the artwork immediately, because the new building was suddenly speeded up. An alternative place was not found and the artwork was stored.

In 2019, the artist saw his chance to set it up again on a construction site. The buildings Brouwersgracht 155-157 had been demolished (of 155 only the façade is still standing due to the monument status), but new construction did not want to go smoothly. In collaboration with the adjacent art gallery Van Zijll Langhout Contemporary Art (161) and the Mondriaan Fund, Van Munster placed his Nail House on the already existing ground floor. The gallery just had an exhibition about art objects yet to be built and photographs of Van Munster's art objects that have either been demolished or are nominated to suffer that fate. Van Munster had been protesting for years against the art policy or the lack thereof within the municipality of Amsterdam.

In July 2019, the building turned up on a fenced vacant building site south of Paradiso at the Weteringschans.

The artwork consists of a "house with residents", which resists its surroundings. Everything around the house has been broken away and excavated, but in the evening there is light. Van Munster himself said he was inspired by photographs of a nearly completed highway in China, the completion of which was delayed for years because an owner refused to leave and sell.