From the Knees of My Nose to the Belly of My Toes by Alex Chinneck, Margate, UK

Artwork FileMargate · UK

Gone2016

• #AlexChinneck
• #SlidingHouse
• #Margate
• #Cliftonville
• #BrickOnSteel
• #Demolished2016

In 2013 Alex Chinneck gave a Cliftonville house, derelict for 11 years, a new brick front that appears to slide off into the front garden. It was meant to stand for a year and was still there in July 2015; the whole building was demolished in December 2016.

📷 More photos

💡 4 things to know

1. Real bricks, bent steelThe curved front came from a brick manufacturer in Gatwick: the faces were sliced off real bricks, glued to steel sheets already bent to shape, then water-jet cut. “We had the aesthetic of a brick cut with the precision of a computer,” Chinneck said. Each bent window is 40 sheets of shaped plywood glued together. The prefabricated panels went up in about six weeks; as the photo shows, the top floor was left with no front at all. Guardian · Dezeen
2. £100,000, almost all donatedNobody commissioned it. Chinneck spent twelve months persuading ten British companies to donate the materials and manufacturing for his self-initiated £100,000 project; the labour was done at cost and paid for by Arts Council England. Thanet District Council lent him the house for one year. He made his own living selling the brick studies from the project’s early stages, at around £3,500 each. Dezeen · Artlyst · Guardian
3. Up the hill, no signsChinneck told Dezeen he was “drawn to Cliftonville because it’s an area where the culture hasn’t reached”, a “very poor area referred to as being ‘up the hill’”; public art, he added, “too often forgets its responsibility to the public”. He never puts signs or labels on his work, “so it does have this sense of mystery”. Dezeen
4. Rebuilt, not restoredStreet Art Utopia’s caption said the piece stayed from 2013 to 2014 and the house was later restored as homes. It stayed longer (see Sightings), and the house was not restored. After the demolition, WW Martin, the Ramsgate builder that says it donated labour and materials for the sliding front, reused the old basement and built two new three-bedroom maisonettes on it for the council. They were finished and occupied in 2020. WW Martin · Thanet council

📍 Where it stood

🗓️ Sightings

1. 201327 Sep

   Photo taken (the one above)

2. 201329 Sep

   Public opening

3. 201426 Jul

   Photo taken (Geograph)

4. 201423 Nov

   Photo taken, past its planned end

5. 20154 Jul

   Photo taken: last dated sighting

6. 2016Dec

   Whole building demolished

7. 201830 Nov

   New build put out to tender

Every stamp links to the dated source.

📰 On the record

✅ The facts

Title

From the Knees of My Nose to the Belly of My Toes; some 2013 reports print “…the Belly of Toes” (KentOnline). Known in the press as the Sliding House, and to its builder as “Slippy House” (WW Martin) Checked

Address

1 Godwin Road, Cliftonville, Margate CT9 2HA Checked

Dates

Work began at the end of August 2013; public opening 29 September 2013, midday–2pm (Architizer); billed to run until October 2014 (AJ) Checked

Materials

Brick faces on bent steel, laminated plywood windows, and Sterling OSB for the walls, floors and hoarding (Norbord release); no dimensions published Checked

Supporters

Arts Council England, Margate Arts Creativity Heritage, Thanet District Council, Ibstock Brick, Norbord, WW Martin and nine more supporters (Architizer) Checked

The house

A four-storey detached Victorian house; the council bought it in 2011 “due to its deteriorating condition and lack of response by the owner” (Thanet council) Checked

End of the artwork

Wikipedia says it existed “from 2013 to 2014” (Wikipedia). Dated photos show it intact on 23 November 2014 (Simon Foster) and 4 July 2015 (Jane Brown). The day the sliding front came down is not documented; it may have stood until the building was demolished Conflicting

Demolition

The whole building, December 2016, by DDS Demolition (council record, quoted above) Checked

Site today

Planning permission March 2015; tendered in November 2018 at £600,000, with the dwellings to stay in the council’s housing stock (Contracts Finder); completed 2020 (Thanet council) Checked

Photo at top

Taken 27 September 2013 at 11:56, two days before the opening (camera date on Commons). Commons lists Alex Chinneck as author; the artist’s site credits the same frame to Stephen O’Flaherty Checked

🔗 Related

• On Street Art Utopia: Alex Chinneck’s Architectural Illusions (8 Photos) (2026), where the photo above appeared.
• Chinneck came back to Margate in 2019 with Alphabetti Spaghetti, a knotted postbox, one of three he placed in London, Margate and Sheffield. The Isle of Thanet News
• The project before this one: Telling the Truth Through False Teeth (2012), 1,248 pieces of glass on the front of a Hackney factory to make its 312 windows look smashed. Artlyst

Artwork File · Last checked 29 September 2026 · Certainty labels follow How We Verify Art · All Artwork Files