Thursday, September 20, 2007

Arthur Miller's shed

In 1948, Arthur Miller built a white clapboard cabin in Roxbury, Connecticut, specifically as a base in which to write Death of a Salesman, even though he had never built anything similar in his life (he said the hardest part was putting up the roof rafters by himself). As he built, he put together the play in his mind, although he did also make use of his desk, an old recycled door. More details about the shed and the play in a great, but quite long, article by The New Yorker's John Lahr here.

4 comments:

  1. Looks more like a doll's house!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, it does look titchy but actually it was quite large. I'm not quite sure how she got it looking like this.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Alex - do you know of any plans for a small shed like Arthur Miller's? I want to build something very cheap and small - big enough for just a desk and a heater - that has a lot of light, for writing and drawing.

    ReplyDelete
  4. There are lots of plans on the internet available pretty cheaply (some even for free). How small is small? You could try:
    http://www.shedplans.com/spgable252.html
    Or it might be easier to buy something small and cheap off the peg and then customise it yourself if you are quite handy.

    ReplyDelete