Unemployed Irish artist, Frank Buckley, has built an entire apartment from the shredded remains of 1.4 billion euros he borrowed from the national mint. He says the Billion Euro Home is a monument to the madness the single currency brought to Ireland.

In 2002, when Ireland adopted the euro, a wave of cheap credit flooded the country, fueling a huge property bubble that eventually led to the country’s economic downfall. People were spending billions of euros on buildings, but when the bubble burst in 2007, the country plunged into the deepest recession of the industrialized world, and those buildings quickly lost their value. Frank Buckley was one of the many Irish who was given a 100% mortgage by the bank, to buy a home with an estimated cost of €365,000, despite the fact he had no steady income. Now his house on the far reaches of Dublin’s commuter belt has lost a third of its value, and the artist is stuck with the credit.

The artist borrowed shredded euro bills from the national mint, made them into bricks and built himself an apartment in the lobby of a vacant Dublin office building. “I wanted to create something from nothing,” Buckley says, ” a reflection of the whole madness that gripped us.” He has separated from his wife, and has been living in his worthless Billion Euro Home, since December. Some of you may be feeling sorry for him bearing the cold in such conditions, but the shredded money covering the walls and floor is such a good insulator that he sleeps without a blanket.

Frank Buckley has even created pictures to decorate his unusual home, from notes and coins, and is now working on completing his abode by adding a kitchen to his living room and hall. The unemployed Irish artist says he wants politicians to solve the euro debt crisis, but should the single currency eventually fail, he would be more than happy to use it as material for his future art projects.

via Huffington Post