Publisher's Synopsis
In 1993, Rachel Whiteread created a work of art which was hailed as one of the greatest public sculptures made by an English artist in the twentieth century. Whiteread's concrete and plaster cast of an entire house in the East End of London provoked equal measures of praise, wonder and controversy.
Her monumental sculpture, on view when she won the Turner Prize, attracted some 3,000 visitors a day before it was demolished in January 1994. This book, made in collaboration with the Artangel Trust, provides a unique chronicle of this remarkable work. Photographs and working drawings chart the house's life from construction to demolition. Six key figures in art journalism contribute their thought-provokingly diverse responses: in turn, the book surveys the whole spectrum of critical reaction to the work.
