Although many of Rachel Whiteread’s sculptures resemble architecture, these casts of interiors in plaster, concrete, or resin, are more like its antithesis—a physicalization of architecture’s intangible negative space. Following casts of a parlor (“Ghost,” 1990), a boathouse (“The Gran Boathouse,” 2010), and a house (“House,” 1993–94, now demolished), the London-based artist has installed “Cabin,” an inside-out “New England-style shed,” on the Hills, West 8’s new landscape on New York’s Governors Island. The permanent low-scaled sculpture contrasts with the city’s skyscrapers—like Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s One World Trade Center—less than half a mile away.
This article appeared in ARCHITECT’s September 2016 issue.
