 COMMUTERS driving past Liverpool's latest public artwork may wonder whether enigmatic magician David Blaine has chosen the city to stunt his latest trick. Outhouse is a strange hybrid of home and greenhouse, a simple structure made from glass panels and metal fixtures that would barely claim a second glance if it were not for its setting. For it is when you are standing close to it, or even inside, that the sculpture comes to life. As the surrounding leaf-clad branches bend in the breeze, their every movement is reflected on the clear walls and the viewer is transported into a distorted world where perception is lost. Commissioned by Liverpool Housing Action Trust which runs the nearby towerblocks, Outhouse is the most recent in a long line of the city's glasshouses. It will be officially opened this evening by National Museums Liverpool chair Loyd Grossman. Created as a public work of art, it will not, like Liverpool's other botanical structures be used for growing plants. However, its location on a strip of woodland in Woolton and the reflections of the trees in the glass gives it a similar atmosphere. Glasshouses have played an important role in British culture even longer than there has been glass. John Rix, author of the new book The Glasshouse, explains: "The glasshouse's earliest history began long before it was glazed. Its first prototypes were the basic horticultural shelters of antiquity, which preceded the use of glass. "Even in the 16th century when a renaissance of interest in botanical learning revived the idea of placing plants under cover, the greenhouse in its many permutations did not immediately include glass, a luxury that was generally limited to ecclesiastical buildings and the houses of the wealthy." By the 19th century, designers were becoming more and more radical in their creations, reflecting and horticulturists' desires to collect bigger species. "It was not only the specialists who were enthused by the possibilities of scientific learning. World travel was in its infancy, and individuals and institutions were collecting animals, insects, curios and plants. "The natural world was being systematically recorded." | 
