Nissen Hut

Nissen Hut, a sculpture by Rachel Whiteread, is a concrete cast of a Nissen hut—a military structure invented during World War I—set in the middle of Dalby Forest in Yorkshire, England. The cast was taken from an existing Nissen hut located in the same forest. It was made as a permanent feature for visitors to encounter in the forest.

A Nissen hut is a prefabricated steel structure for military use, especially as barracks, made from a half-cylindrical skin of corrugated steel. It was designed during the First World War by the American-born, British engineer and inventor Major Peter Norman Nissen. The Forestry Commission, which manages Dalby Forest, came into being in 1919 to replenish the nation’s strategic timber reserve after the First World War. Nissen huts were utilised in the labour camps created to support the planting of Dalby Forest. They were also used in prisoner of war camps in this and other forests across the country.

By focusing on empty space and transforming it into sculpture, Whiteread – one of the UK’s most important living artists and the first woman to win the Turner Prize – creates a haunting testament to the war’s impact on every part of the British landscape. This monument brings visitors into the heart of the forest, a living, breathing space in which to view art.

As the latest in Rachel’s Shy Sculptures series, Nissen Hut represents a unique story in the development of her practice. Her creation of memorials to indigenous buildings across the world, from Norway to the American desert and from Norfolk, England, to New York, continues her long investigation of memory and history by making the invisible interior volumes of space solid and visible. These works are imbued with stories, with Rachel as the storyteller. Nissen Hut is a meeting point for myriad interwoven histories, a node of some kind; a crucible holding and guarding the chronicles and tales it represents for all those who come across it in the woods.

Nissen Hut is part of Rachel Whiteread’s ongoing Shy Sculpture series

About the artist
Dame Rachel Whiteread DBE (born 20 April 1963) is an English artist who primarily produces sculptures, which typically take the form of casts. She was the first woman to win the annual Turner Prize in 1993.

Whiteread was one of the Young British Artists who exhibited at the Royal Academy’s Sensation exhibition in 1997. Among her most renowned works are House, a large concrete cast of the inside of an entire Victorian house; the Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial in Vienna, resembling the shelves of a library with the pages turned outwards; and Untitled Monument, her resin sculpture for the empty fourth plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square.

She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2006 and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2019 Birthday Honours for services to art.

Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW and Forestry Commission England