Rachel Whiteread’s House: why was this Bow landmark demolished? (2015) | Hacker News Reader

Rachel Whiteread’s House: why was this Bow landmark demolished? (2015)

romanroadlondon.com

50 pointsBerislavLopac26 comments

>> The form elicited unease as when we have an intimate relationship with a space, we start to ignore its intricacies, instead handling navigating through the general form unconsciously.

I'm guessing the form rather elicited unease because it was an eyesore and not for any symbolism it might have carried.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. When this was first done I instinctively hated it because of how much the art world fawned over it, but I've really come to appreciate Whiteread's work, even if she's a bit of a one-trick pony like Philip Glass.

>> Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

No objection from me. Just, sometimes it pokes at the eye of the beholder.

Sure, just a tic from my sculpture degree, where subjective claims like "most people thought it was an eyesore" or "I think it's an eyesore" resulted in a more cordial discussion than objective claims like "it was an eyesore", because the former are more open to questions like "what do you mean by 'eyesore'?"

You're right of course, I should have qualified that "eysore" judgement better. For instance, I should have said:

"I'm guessing the form rather elicited unease because most people thought it was an eyesore and not for any symbolism it might have carried."

The above was closer to what I meant.

Perhaps, though I find all public sculpture a nuisance simply because it obstructs movement and sight lines. By default it’s simply a net negative.

Though I may be in the minority on this one.

The park around it is what's an eyesore. Imagine how cool it would've looked if they put some trees around it. Or even a plaza. The park looks like a carefully manicured vacant lot.

This is what the park looks like now: https://goo.gl/maps/aufMFdV1yBtQbACF6

Google Maps actually even has the Whiteread house itself, although that's just a photo inserted into a 2017 panorama: https://goo.gl/maps/3hVzRrs3PDbNXiwD7

Wow, this really ties in to a lot of things. Victorian terraced houses. The reshaping of London by the Luftwaffe. the emptying out of postwar London especially the East End, resulting in that particular derelict look of a lot of the TV and film of the 70s (e.g. The Professionals). An eccentric refusenik in the final un-demolished house. Nineties "cool britannia" art. Concrete brutalism. Art funding vs social services. Local councils and planning schemes.

Even the KLF get a mention.

See also the Bermondsey Tank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandela_Way_T-34_Tank

The House’s economics became even more contentious when Whiteread won the £20,000 Turner Prize for the work (the first woman to receive the honour), and then £40,000 from the rebel K Foundation (composed of members of the defunct pop group KLF) for the ‘worst artist of the year.

I remember that! The KLF wanted to make a point about money in art or something so pledged to double the Turner Prize money to whomever wanted it as long as the artist admitted they were terrible. They paid for advertising slots during the award ceremony on British tv.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Foundation

Whiteread initially refused to accept the K Foundation prize, but after being told that the money would be incinerated, she reluctantly accepted, with the intention of donating £30,000 to artists in financial need and the other £10,000 to the housing charity, Shelter.

It was around that era that the KLF/K Foundation burnt £1 million as a statement/art performance

I think they saw the house as being bad art in general.

"Houses are traditionally considered a symbol of the unconscious, by filling a terraced house with concrete and then removing the brickwork shell, Whiteread showed herself to be intellectually, creatively and emotionally blocked — something that is evident in all her 'work'."

The best essay assignment I got during my sculpture degree was to pick the work of art that I liked the least and write about why I disliked it so much. It's an excellent practice that often leads to an appreciation of the work, or at the very least an understanding of other people's pleasure in it, which in itself can be enlightening. It's difficult to do without the discipline of an essay - just thinking about it doesn't force you to explicitly articulate your dislike as much - although it's also possible in cordial discussions with someone who does like it. I came round to artists like Rachel Whiteread and Tracey Emin because of that process and it widened my horizons considerably.

> a politically embarrassing monument to an impoverished history

At the time it I thought the local council were being very naive and narrow minded to tear it down. But now I can see that it would be a constant reminder to those living in poverty with a shortage of housing nearby despite what it was meant to represent.

A reminder to those in poverty, that the council was willing to spend 60,000 on "art" which was prioritized over funding low-income housing among other things.

>‘How can they get grants for arts projects when we can’t get grants for homes? I could have bought a new home for my family with this money.’

Yep. Very cool sculpture, poor taste in installation location.

Unfortunately given the nature of how the thing's created you can't really move it somewhere else. Might've actually been easier to move the house first.

The whole point was that this was a house that shouldn't have been demolished (or moved). The council didn't want the sculpture to stay because it stood as a reminder of their policy, the public were in two minds because it was so brutalist in appearance, and they misunderstood it to exemplify gentrification. If it remained today it would be a universally loved and globally visited icon of modern art.

I doubt it. It's cool but also really ugly. Imagine if you lived opposite it. Maybe if they made it out of something other than concrete it wouldn't be so bad, but history has proven again and again that bare concrete is just fundamentally an ugly material. Even if it starts ok it ages really really badly.

> bare concrete is just fundamentally an ugly material

"Ugly" is an emotional response, and isn't universal. Maybe some people find bare concrete ugly some of the time, but that's a far cry from it being "fundamentally an ugly material".

There's plenty of bare concrete buildings which are appreciated. This house in Chile comes to mind: https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/houses/108353211/am... . The Barbican Centre in London makes extensive use of bare concrete, and is widely appreciated.

This is "beauty is subjective therefore nothing is more beautiful than anything else" nonsense.

We can talk about expected beauty - that is, how beautiful you would expect a random person to say something is. And on that metric bare concrete scores very low.

> The Barbican Centre in London makes extensive use of bare concrete

It does not. Its concrete has been worked to expose the granite aggregate.

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/255227503860482433/

Bare concrete looks like this:

https://www.friendlyshade.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/bar...

> and is widely appreciated.

It was voted London's ugliest building in 2003. And I would say it is appreciated more for its cool layout than its materials.

The location is the important thing!

I'm not at all arty-minded, regretfully, I seem to lack the visual aesthetic bone and share the common scepticism of much of modern art, but I immediately reacted with surprise to House as something uncanny, mysterious and disturbing but beautiful and regret it's destruction.

Lol, I tend to like modern art. In general, I find it more interesting and playful to look at then most classics. But I did not liked this one.

The use of old or condemned buildings reminds me of works by the sadly short-lived Gordon Matta-Clark.

https://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/07...

FWIW, wikipedia says the plan always was to demolish it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Foundation_art_award

"Whiteread's sculpture, House, was demolished, as had been planned from its inception, on 11 January 1994"

London changed, things that were once - are not now.

Bishops Gate is an empty monument to hubris today, the city is obsessively neat and clean - unused and waiting. But for what? I don't think that the commuters are coming back, without them the money ebbs out of the centre - it'll only hold if it changes.

Nothing will be the same - but will it be better?

Erase anything interesting.

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