A “nail house” is Chinese slang for the last house left standing amid the demolition that is transforming the country’s cities.
Nail houses are the scars of progress. China’s rapid industrialisation and urbanisation has razed homes in the countryside, villages and cities.
Even Beijing’s unique architecture of siheyuan courtyard houses – generally single-storey grey-brick buildings, arranged around flagstone courtyards – has not been spared. Traditionally home to one wealthy family, most siheyuan were repeatedly subdivided after the Communist victory in 1949. Some property owners had their homes restored in the 1980s only to lose them again to bulldozers in recent years.
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