'Embankment' — by Rachel Whiteread

One of the world's greatest sculptors, Whiteread's highly–anticipated new work (above and below, with the artist)

for London's Tate Modern Turbine Hall opened last week to rave reviews, with many declaring it the greatest work of her already noteworthy career. Whiteread (below)

filled the enormous empty space (below)

with 14,000 white cast polyethylene boxes, creating an indoor Arctic of sorts — but with a peculiar warmth instead of chill.

In a superb interview with Lynn Barber that appeared in Sunday's Observer the 42–year–old Whiteread, short–listed for the Turner Prize in 1991 at 28 and its winner two years later, went back and reflected on her inspirations, working techniques, the effect of becoming a parent at 38 — she told Barber that motherhood "made me feel whole" — and the transformation of her world view from dourness to an anticipatory enthusiasm.

Her work will remain up through April 2, 2006, after which the boxes will be ground into bits and made into bollards.

Like her Turner Prize–winning "House" (below),

it will exist only in memory and photographs.

Just as with each of us and, in the end, as memory fades and photographs crumble, it will be as if it never happened.

It never did.