Frank Buckley · Dublin, 2011–2012

Billion Euro House

A small, habitable house built from bricks of shredded and compressed retired euro banknotes — roughly €1.4 billion in face value, taken out of circulation.

Exterior of the Billion Euro House: a wall of grey-blue banknote bricks with a timber door set with a small diamond window and a leaded glass fanlight above.
The front door, set into walls of banknote bricks.

Frank Buckley is an Irish artist known chiefly for Billion Euro House, a temporary artwork created in Dublin in 2011–2012. It was located in a vacant office building on O’Connell Street, central Dublin, and Buckley lived there during the installation’s run — turning it into both an artwork and a lived-in protest.

Why he made it

The house responded to Ireland’s post-2008 financial crash, especially the collapse of the property market after the Celtic Tiger boom. Its point was the contrast between enormous sums of money moving through banks and property speculation, and ordinary people facing unemployment, vacant buildings, debt and housing insecurity.

Using money that was physically present but no longer spendable made the message visible: even a billion euros can become worthless material under the right circumstances.

What happened to it

The installation was temporary and did not survive as a permanent Dublin building. It received international press attention and became one of the more recognisable artworks associated with Ireland’s recession-era economic crisis.

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