An invitation of the very special kind is extended with Mark Moskowitz’ solitary house, the “Writer’s Cabin”. It is an invitation to an aesthetic, political, philosophical and architectural re-orientation. In architectural terms, the “Cabin” orients itself to the ‘archetypes’ of houses, and it is dedicated to great American writers such as Hemingway and Jack London, but above all to Henry David Thoreau, the 19th century philosopher and radical social critic.

In 1845, Thoreau started an experiment that was to continue for two years and subsequently became a revolutionary manifest with his famous report entitled “Walden, or life in the woods” – a manifest that has been influencing alternative life strategies, philosophy and art to this day. This is remarkable in view of the fact that Thoreau didn’t do that much. He merely built a simple wooden hut at near-by Lake Walden and tried to work as little as possible while still making a living. Nothing sensational, in other words, especially since the nearest village was just half an hour away and the noise from the near-by railway line maintained the connection with civilization. The revolutionary potential of this experiment arises from the systematic de-hierarchization of all areas and phenomena of life.

Thoreau dedicated as much attention to the report about the construction of his hut as to topics revolving around plantations and the observation of nature. Sociological studies about the rural population or forestry stand side by side with comments on politics and religion but are not given more weight than the devoted listening to the sounds of nature – everything is nature, and everything is equal. Mark Moskowitz reflects this philosophy of a world without hierarchies by presenting his “Writer’s Cabin” as teamwork to which all departments at Cranbrook contributed: ceramics and metalsmithing, sculpture, print media, architecture and others.