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Dora Himmelberger (91) on Schlossmühlestrasse in Frauenfeld TG, in the background her little house and a house in the new development.
Karen ScharerEditor society
It happens again and again that homes stand in the way of a planned development. An “innovation park” is currently being planned in Wigoltingen TG – existing houses have disappeared from the plans. The owners are worried.
The story of Dora Himmelberger (91) from Frauenfeld TG shows that one can defend oneself against such plans. She saw no reason to sell her house at Schlossmühlestrasse 17 to the Thurgau real estate company Tobler Verwaltungs AG and to make room for a new development. She will only leave her home when she is “carried out feet first,” she says during a visit from Blick.
She doesn’t care about money
The fact that life in a small house in the middle of a major construction site would be uncomfortable didn’t deter her. “Since I can’t hear well anymore, the construction noise doesn’t bother me,” she says. There was never a concrete purchase offer. ‘I didn’t want to know. The sum would not have played a role, »says the former employee of the Frauenfeld Residents’ Registration Office.
The construction plans for two superstructures with a total of 53 apartments and an underground car park had to be adjusted. Because Dora Himmelberger’s pretty little house, built in 1868, remains. A nail house towered over by newly erected buildings. Nail houses are buildings whose owners refuse to sell their home for new construction.
What is a nail house?
The term Nagelhaus comes from China, where residential buildings often have to give way to high-rise buildings, supermarkets or streets. If the owners object, the builders have to realize their project around the house. Then the house stands there lonely, like a nail that cannot be driven into a board.
In Switzerland, the state can expropriate owners if their house stands in the way of an infrastructure project such as a railway line or a road. The parties often come to an amicable agreement. Sometimes not.
In Zurich West, the owners of a more than 100-year-old house fought against the expropriation – for eleven years, until the Federal Supreme Court. Artist collectives became active, symbolic images were created, the media response was great: in vain. In 2016, the Nagelhaus had to give way to an access road to the Maag site.
Also in 2016, the former Güterbahnhof restaurant in Zurich was demolished after the owner twice went to federal court to avert the expropriation. Where the house once stood, there is now a bend in the west tangent.
Expropriation is not possible when it comes to a building project by private individuals. Like Dora Himmelberger (91) in Frauenfeld, artist Anton Buob († 80) in Lucerne also opposed the sale of his house on Bernstrasse, which was to be “upgraded” on a grand scale. After years, he agreed to a sale in 2016 – and died a few weeks later.
This nail house in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang stood in the middle of a newly built arterial road. Owner and farmer Luo Baogen was finally persuaded to sell and moved out with his wife in 2012.
AP
The term Nagelhaus comes from China, where residential buildings often have to give way to high-rise buildings, supermarkets or streets. If the owners object, the builders have to realize their project around the house. Then the house stands there lonely, like a nail that cannot be driven into a board.
In Switzerland, the state can expropriate owners if their house stands in the way of an infrastructure project such as a railway line or a road. The parties often come to an amicable agreement. Sometimes not.
In Zurich West, the owners of a more than 100-year-old house fought against the expropriation – for eleven years, until the Federal Supreme Court. Artist collectives became active, symbolic images were created, the media response was great: in vain. In 2016, the Nagelhaus had to give way to an access road to the Maag site.
Also in 2016, the former Güterbahnhof restaurant in Zurich was demolished after the owner twice went to federal court to avert the expropriation. Where the house once stood, there is now a bend in the west tangent.
Expropriation is not possible when it comes to a building project by private individuals. Like Dora Himmelberger (91) in Frauenfeld, artist Anton Buob († 80) in Lucerne also opposed the sale of his house on Bernstrasse, which was to be “upgraded” on a grand scale. After years, he agreed to a sale in 2016 – and died a few weeks later.
A lot has changed on Schlossmühlestrasse since construction began in 2021, as shown by an old photo hanging framed in Dora Himmelberger’s room with the mint-colored wall paneling and wooden beams. The house that she has lived in for 46 years, the last 24 of which as a widow alone, has been detached since the summer of 2021. Before that it was the first part of a terraced house. The other parts of the house were already owned by the real estate company.
rain in the house
After all her neighbors had moved away, Dora Himmelberger became lonely. She watched the construction work from the window and continued to sit on the bench in front of the house. There were still a few low points.
She moved out for a week in the summer of 2021, when the remaining parts of the terraced house were due to be demolished. When she came back, her house had only an improvised wall on one side. “The first night I got soaked in bed,” she says. The wall offered no protection from the violent thunderstorm. After all, the summer heat was able to dry everything quickly.
In the following winter, however, the cold that penetrated through the uninsulated wall affected the elderly woman. She got a maxillary sinus infection. She separated the room from the rest of the house with a heavy curtain so that at least she could heat it there. “I suffered from the cold in the house all winter,” says Himmelberger. In the meantime, the wall has been repaired at the expense of the real estate company and covered with Eternit.
“I got what I wanted”
It was the joie de vivre that gave her the strength to persevere in her beloved little house with the small garden. The senior is at peace with herself. “I have a peaceful feeling: I have what I wanted,” she says. When she dies, her foster son, now a grandfather himself, will move into the house.
This week the huge red crane that stood on a high pedestal in front of her house and took away a lot of the light was dismantled. “It belongs to the Stutz company. I baptized him Gopfried, »she says and smiles mischievously. She will hardly miss him. Instead, the former neighbors with whom she is in contact via chat. “New tenants are coming from June,” says Dora Himmelberger. “It’s going to be rather impersonal with them.”