Donald Judd’s architecture office in Marfa will reopen this month after a seven-year restoration. The building caught fire in 2021, less than one month before what was originally a three-year renovation was due to be completed, partially collapsing the roof and parts of the top floor.
The $3.3m restoration of the two-floor brick building began in 2018 as part of the Marfa Restoration Plan, a project to restore six sites under the stewardship of the Judd Foundation. When the fire struck, sprinkler systems had not yet been installed, and the building was in flames for over 12 hours. The cause of the fire remains unknown.
Judd bought the 5,000 sq. ft building, which once served as a grocery store, in 1990. The building is situated on a prominent corner of Highland Avenue in the Central Marfa Historic District and has a glass façade that opens to the main street and connects the space to the historic Texas town.
Acquisition spree
Architecture Office at the Judd Foundation in Marfa, Texas Photo Matthew Millman © Judd Foundation.
“It made sense for that building to be a more public-facing office, even though people never really visited. It was just him in there, mostly,” Flavin Judd, the artistic director of the Judd Foundation and the artist’s son, tells The Art Newspaper. “Within a short two- to three-year span … he had bought all the buildings downtown. Nobody else wanted them and they were very cheap and very nice.”
The building houses art, furniture and various prototypes and architectural blueprints, which had been moved during the renovation and were unharmed by the fire. The downstairs, which will be partly used as an office by the foundation, is the only space in Marfa where Judd’s furniture is displayed on its own; other venues mix Judd’s pieces with those of other designers or antiques.
On the upper level, which will continue to serve as apartments for staff and researchers, Judd installed pieces by John Chamberlain and some Alvar Aalto furniture. Unlike 101 Spring Street in New York City, the design of which Judd perfected over three decades, the architecture office has an overall “looser installation”, according to Flavin, and was “put together rather quickly”.
Second floor of the Architecture Office at the Judd Foundation in Marfa, Texas Photo Matthew Millman © Judd Foundation. John Chamberlain Art © Fairweather &Fairweather LTD / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
“It is still consistent with what he was doing with 101 Spring Street—where he saw the beauty of the building and tried not to change it too much, but alter it to suit his needs,” Flavin explains. “The only principle [of the renovation] was that if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. It’s not just about slathering paint and changing things. We wanted the restoration to be invisible.”
Silver lining
The project has been led by the architecture firm Schaum Architects, previously Schaum Shieh. The principal, Troy Schaum, says that a “silver lining” to the fire was that every part of the building had been extensively documented. “Had it been another building on the campus, we might not have known as much.”
One visible addition is a canopy outside of the building designed to shade the glass façade, which Judd had removed when he acquired the building. The canopy was recreated based on archival photographs of the original, and has been fitted with hidden air vents in the mullions that draw in air and create a climate control system called “night flushing”, a traditional technique in desert architecture that keeps the building cool. Filters have also been added to keep out the fine dust of the desert. Denim insulation and insulated glass have been installed throughout, helping to limit environmental fluctuations.
Schaum adds that one of the most striking features of the renovation is how it highlights the “transparency” of the building and relates to Judd’s presence in Marfa, where he purchased and repurposed several buildings in his lifetime.
Windows onto town life
The Architecture Office at the Judd Foundation in Marfa, Texas Photo Matthew Millman © Judd Foundation.
“Some of the most famous photographs of Judd working here were taken from the street, looking into the building,” Schaum says. “Often people think of Judd as retreating or isolating to remote spaces to work, but this building shows the opposite—it’s about connection. He was making architecture in the middle of an active town, and deeply engaged with its life.”
The architecture office is due to reopen on 20 September with a weekend of programming and celebrations that will engage the community and give context to the building, which is on the National Register as part of the Central Marfa Historic District. One event includes a conversation on the restoration and Judd’s own adaptations to the building featuring Schaum and others.
“One of the most valuable things to come out of this project is the broader thinking about historic preservation across the town,” Schaum says. “Marfa is a beautiful example of a Texas courthouse town. A preservation district now exists that includes both that early history and Judd’s contributions from the 1970s through the 90s.”
Larger project
Donald Judd in Marfa, Texas, in 1993 Photo © Laura Wilson. Courtesy Judd Foundation.
The architecture office is the first site to be completed as part of the restoration plan. The foundation will likely focus on the architecture studio across the street next, which for the artist served as a “place to hang out, read and draw”, and is a “much bigger building with more going on”, Flavin says.
“We’re slowly working through it,” Flavin adds. “The buildings are always falling down, even if they are just sitting there, so we are always fixing them. When we do a restoration, it’s a larger project, as opposed to just ongoing maintenance. Eventually, we will get to all the buildings.”
