'Place (Village)' is an assemblage of more than 100 dolls’ houses of mismatched styles, collected by the artist over a period of about twenty years. It is a quietly unsettling sculptural work which uses dolls' houses, packing cases and fruit crates to evoke a sprawling hillside community. They are lit from within, but are devoid of both people and objects. The perpetual ‘night’ created by the painted walls and blacked-out windows, allied to the emptiness of the houses, provokes an awed, haunted atmosphere, and a curious feeling of melancholy.

This work was influenced by the V&A Museum of Childhood (now Young V&A) from its inception: Whiteread recalled that as a child she was mesmerized by its famous collection of dolls’ houses. As an adult, she became interested in dolls’ houses as repositories for memory and family history, since many are passed down through generations of family members. Dolls’ houses can also be a means of personal expression, through collecting items to adorn them, by decorating them, and through playing with them. The absence of people and things in 'Place (Village)' encourages the viewer to invent their own stories about the dwellers’ activities, or about what has happened to the people and their possessions.