When a House Becomes a Home
Essay by Annie Knox
2023
Condensation on old glass windows, creaking floorboards of corridors, scratched door frames; these are the details of a home. The idea of house and home is separated by human. Before we inhabit these enclosed spaces, they are simply built structures, alone anonymously at the end of streets and over vast fields. We are unaware of their existence until our feet touch their floors and our eyes see through their windows. Our personal relationship with these spaces is what gives the house the significance of home. This essay will explore this notion of home through the work of Rachel Whiteread, specifically her 1993 public sculpture ‘House’ and the works that led to this piece, as well as what ‘home’ actually means by looking at the philosophy of Gaston Bachelard.
The house initially starts life as an object, that of right angles, strong walls, and closed ceilings. Though, once inhabited by humans, the house takes a new purpose in its being. As French philosopher Gaston Bachelard says in his 1957 book ‘The Poetics of Space’: “inhabited space transcends geometrical space” (Bachelard, 1957). He discusses how the house we are born into is the first universe we perceive in life, what happens in these walls is what influences our perception of the exterior world. In this building we are raised, we learn, and we dream. Bachelard describes our birth-home as: “…more than an embodiment of home, it is also an embodiment of dreams.” (Bachelard, 1957) Clearly to Bachelard the essence of the home is integral in who we are as persons, the house symbolises our psyche, the rooms, the stairs, the cold doorhandles are ingrained in our memory. The relationship we share with this space will always be part of who we are. As Jennifer Johung says in her book ‘Replacing Home: From Primordial Hut to Digital Network in Contemporary Art’: “Yet we cannot deny that we still care about being in place, that we need to be housed, and that we want to belong somewhere.” (Johung, 2012) The home is fundamental in our being, much like the body, the house acts as a vessel for the comfort, safety, and love which comprise the feeling of home. Architect Ola Nylander states: “A house both assembles and gives form to the feelings that influence the idea ‘home’.” (Nylander, 2002)
‘Home’ appears to be a transcendental feeling; it is not physical but rather manifests in the body of a house. Conveying this extremely intimate emotion requires attentiveness and empathy. The home is a sacred feeling, one of which Rachel Whiteread manages to express quietly in her 1993 work ‘House’. Leading up to this work, Whiteread had experimented much with the notion of space, particularly negative space, that which fills in the void of everyday structures. Her first ‘true’ sculpture – as she would describe it – was ‘Closet’ in 1988 (Whiteread, A Conversation with Rachel Whiteread, March 2001, 2001). In much of her work Whiteread explores the silent spaces of domestic life, ranging from the underside of tables to the insides of hot water bottles, these forgettable areas are brought to our attention through her work, making us question the intimacy we have with the physical environment around us. Curator Patrick Elliott summarises the physical beauty of Whiteread’s work as dramatising “the personal life of furniture through the casting process, retaining the minutiae of surface detail.” (Elliott, 2001) ‘Closet’ was the beginning of this exploration for Whiteread, casting the inside of a closet she draws on childhood experiences through the relationship to specific space. She discusses the piece coming from the aim “to make a childhood experience concrete.” (Whiteread, A Conversation with Rachel Whiteread, March 2001, 2001) Another work which has been cited as a major milestone and development towards the creation of ‘House’ was 1990’s ‘Ghost’. This first large-scale sculpture by Whiteread was a cast of a Victorian living room, she describes this sculpture as “a mausoleum of a room, of a space” (Whiteread, This Cultural Life, 2023). This ambition to cement our relationships to the quiet spaces of life is what would resurface in much of Whiteread’s work, especially ‘House’.
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
'Closet' (1988) – Rachel Whiteread 'Ghost' (1990) – Rachel Whiteread
The controversial public sculpture once found at 193 Grove Road on London’s East End propelled Whiteread to international acclaim, becoming the first female artist to win the Turner Prize. The large sculpture is a concrete cast of a Victorian terraced house. Its siblings haven been demolished years prior, only standing due to the former resident squatting there to prevent its destruction. Eventually he agreed to Whiteread using the house as the mould for her artwork, and temporarily memorialising the quiet significance of home. The house is a warm grey, its windows bulge from the walls and corroding steps lead to the front door, showing the imprint of former feet. Shapes of what were once fireplaces protrude from the sides, and ascending lines shadow previously functioning stairs that lead to mimics of doors and skirting boards. The work caused a great deal of objection from the local community resulting in its destruction only eleven weeks later. Although hard to comprehend its negative attention, Whiteread explains the reaction many had to this work, “(it) fucked up everybody’s perception of their home…” (Whiteread, A Conversation with Rachel Whiteread, March 2001, 2001)
​
‘House’ (1993) – Rachel Whiteread
Considering the impact of Whiteread’s ‘House’ we must connect its qualities back to the idea of ‘home’, once more looking at that of Gaston Bachelard and his poetic thinking towards that of the home. As cited in the first paragraph, Bachelard comments on our connection to lived-in spaces as opposed to statuary space, this space is what is captured in the sculpture ‘House’. The small details that make a home a home are all captured in this sculpture: the chipping on the walls, the loose hinges of the doors, the slightly slanted roof. All the elements of this home are engraved into the sculpture, telling us a story of the space. These markings indicate time, human, memories; they are physically stored in the home through them. The joy of Whiteread’s work is the detail to this, looking at the steps leading towards the front door, the wear and tear of them are significant in the story of the home and who has the emotional connection to it. The home is an extension of self, to see these qualities made into a monument to the mundane is confrontational and emotional. This is possibly why people were so unsettled by the work. Great art should make people think, consider the world around them and the inner world within themselves, ‘House’ quietly does this. It makes one consider their own connection to their home through the obscure and abstract shapes we do not consider normally. It makes us consider the memories and feelings which are hidden in corners of rooms from the basement to the attic, what role these spaces have made in our past, current, and future life.
When Whiteread solidifies the negative space of an object she brings our attention to towards these areas of our life, making us consider these shy spaces and how they have impacted us. Looking fondly back on old wooden cabinets and chipped creaky stairways, we question the significance these supposedly minuscule attributes in our homes have within our heart. The simple answer is that these are small, they are possibly insignificant in the universe and to others, but they are significant within us. This personal connection to space, time, and memory all weave into the blanket of comfort we call home. A house becomes a home when someone has lived in it, has experienced waking up late or shouting at the leg of a table against which they just stubbed their toe. We as humans build private and poetic relationships to space, emotional bonds which impact our inner beings. And none of these spaces are more significant than that which we call home.
​
​
​
​
​
Bibliography
Bachelard, G. (1957). The Poetics of Space.
Elliott, P. (2001). Sculpting Nothing: An Introduction to the Work of Rachel Whiteread. In N. G. Scotland, Rachel Whiteread (p. 9). Edinburgh: Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
Johung, J. (2012). Replacing Home: From Primordial Hut to Digital Network in Contemporary Art. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Nylander, O. (2002). Architecture of The Home. Chichester: Wiley Academy.
Whiteread, R. (2001, March). A Conversation with Rachel Whiteread, March 2001. (L. G. Corrin, Interviewer)
Whiteread, R. (2023, 02 04). This Cultural Life. (J. Wilson, Interviewer)
