A landmark opening is set to take place in Marfa, the small Texas town whose transformation into an ‘art destination’ was famously led by the legendary Donald Judd. While he is among the most important American artists of the minimalist movement, it is less commonly known that his practice extended beyond sculpture and furniture and into architecture.

Judd had moved from New York City in the 1970s to the remote town which dots the endless high desert. In the decades to follow he was busy establishing large-scale art spaces and undertaking ambitious historic preservation projects. His many endeavors include an office in the heart of town which ultimately became his working architecture studio.

The office occupies a two-story brick structure which was first built in the early twentieth century before its overhaul by Judd and his team after acquiring it in 1990. Its recent restoration follows a seven-year effort that began in 2018 and paused after a fire in 2021. Throughout it all, the design team’s approach is driven by Judd’s own principles — respect for original materials and thoughtful adaptation to context. The renovation of Donald Judd’s architecture office in Marfa has reached completion and will reopen on September 20th, 2025.

Ahead of the office’s September 20th reopening, designboom spoke with Rainer Judd, President of the Judd Foundation and Donald’s daughter, about the project’s place within his legacy and its role in the ongoing story of Marfa.

Architecture Office, Judd Foundation, Marfa, Texas | image by Matthew Millman © Judd Foundation

a restoration driven by donald judd’s design principles

The reopening of the Marfa office is led by Texas-based studio Schaum Architects along with the Judd Foundation, which sees to the preservation and revival of Donald Judd’s architectural works. Through the project, passive cooling strategies, a rooftop solar array, and sustainable insulation methods are integrated into the original structure. Its historic spirit, meanwhile, is maintained and celebrated.

Interiors become gallery spaces for the display of Judd’s plywood and metal furniture, drawings, physical models, and archival material. Visitors traveling through Marfa are invited to explore these rooms to experience the depth of Judd’s architectural practice in the spaces where it came to life.

Donald Judd in Marfa, Texas, 1993 | image © Laura Wilson, courtesy Judd Foundation

dialogue with rainer judd

designboom (DB): Can you describe the spirit of Marfa through your eyes, and through the eyes of Donald Judd? How has it has evolved since his first presence there?

Rainer Judd (RJ): Marfa has a small-town history that is the core of its spirit — generations of individuals and families have helped shaped this before Don. From its days as a military outpost to its period as a cattle town, through the de facto segregation period against Mexican American residents, through its economic up and downs, it tells the story of change in the southwest, demographically and economically. Before it was settled as a town, this region has been inhabited for thousands of years.

For Don, Marfa was a place to install his work, a place to be in and care for the land, and to think. Inadvertently, it was an opportunity to do something locally that did not go against the nature of the place. He was against Marfa becoming a cattle town museum, and an art town as well, he was against the idea of an artist colony.

Today Marfa is considered an ‘art destination,’ and it was not when Don was living there. It is our responsibility to show up to the challenges we’ve helped create. I think for the work of the Foundation it is important to consider Marfa in an everyday context, of a small town, with us being one of the many individuals contributing to the next chapter of the place’s history.

Architecture Office, Judd Foundation, Marfa, Texas | image by Matthew Millman © Judd Foundation

DB: While he is known first as an artist and designer, he famously had many built and unbuilt works of architecture. How did these different creative disciplines intersect for him?

RJ: Art and design were individual parts of a whole, but you can see how they work with architecture, they all deal with space. In his writing on all of these — art, architecture, design — he states that the need to preserve and install his work in spaces that he considered appropriate and the invention of his work, were two primary concerns that ‘joined and both tend toward architecture.’ Concerned with the space surrounding his art, this led to repurposing buildings and envisioning future ones for different purposes.

That being a given, he understood that art did not have to concern itself with function the way architecture and design do. He emphasized that architecture was not art, but that did not mean that it could not be artistic or cultural the way that many objects and structures clearly are.

His concerns with scale, materials, form, and quality were the points at which these disciplines intersected. And also dignity, which he refers to often in writing and in interviews about architecture and art. The dignity of spaces, for living and for working, he believed good buildings had that quality. And of course, the inherent dignity of art, which led to his concern with its preservation and proper installation.

Architecture Office, Judd Foundation, Marfa, Texas | image by Matthew Millman © Judd Foundation

DB: How do this building and its restoration illustrate his architectural and artistic vision?

RJ: Considering the historic and spatial context of buildings, understanding their original structure and function was important to Don. When he bought the Architecture Office, one of the first things he did was sandblast the facade, he wanted to return the building to its original condition. This action takes into consideration the town, the style, and the time in which it was built. He respected original thought, labor, and materials. He was interested in not wasting this. He understood that the building could serve other purposes and even have his ‘unusual furniture’ inside but structurally it should be returned to the context, or as he would say the ‘situation.’

This aspect of understanding historically, spatially, and culturally where one is and what can be done with the available materials and resources, can be seen in both his art and architecture practices. And it was also what guided the Foundation’s work in this restoration project. The building needed to be up to date to protect the installed collection and the integrity of its structure, to adapt to the desert climate and be energy efficient, but whatever had to be done had to consider the existing situation and how it fit into the broader history and community in Marfa.

Architecture Office, Judd Foundation, Marfa, Texas | image by Matthew Millman © Judd Foundation

DB: What discoveries were made during the team’s environmental condition studies, and what were some challenges in bringing the building back to life, especially with the harsh Marfa climate?

RJ: The building has beautiful details that were able to be maintained and preserved or rebuilt after the fire — from the archway on the second floor, to the pressed tin ceiling, to its double hung windows, to the framing of the building. Following the fire, we had the opportunity to have new conversations to the possibilities within the structure.

The building itself, built circa 1915, was structured with a lattice of wood beams across the attic ceiling so it all had to be rebuilt. This provided our talented project team with a time period to consider how to do it better, more efficiently, with the time of one hundred years to reflect upon. We installed a system which I am excited about, which reflects the ‘technologies’ humans have used for thousands of years in desert climates in which the cool night air flushes the building.

Architecture Office, Judd Foundation, Marfa, Texas | image by Matthew Millman © Judd Foundation

DB: Judd’s furniture and design pieces, especially physical models, are a huge part of the restoration. How do these elements help us better understand his legacy?

RJ: Don’s art and furniture are widely known, there is a great deal of scholarship about his art, and to some extent his furniture and writing. His architecture is perhaps lesser known and the scale of it not wholly understood. Building big and new at large scales was the norm in 1980s, and it is not that Don did not have big projects, but he understood that resources are finite and that destroying existing architecture in favor of the ‘new’ was against reason, for him even to an ethical degree.

The architectural models and plans in the space illustrate not only his range within his practice of projects he was working on but also serve as examples of one person’s understanding of architecture, of form and function, and of space and time.

second floor, Architecture Office, Judd Foundation, Marfa, Texas | image by Matthew Millman © Judd Foundation, John Chamberlain Art © Fairweather & Fairweather LTD / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

DB: With the Architecture Office now restored, how does it fit into the Judd Foundation’s long-term vision for preserving Donald’s legacy in Marfa?

RJ: The Architecture Office marks the completion of the first total building restoration project in Marfa (following the completion of the historic restoration of Spring Street in New York). In the scale of artists foundations both in the United States and abroad, we are a small team with a large mission that involves maintaining Judd’s physical spaces and art, public engagement, research, publications, exhibitions, land conservation, and gardens. The restoration was therefore monumental for us in terms of how the community, both in Marfa and beyond, came together along with the restoration project team of engineers, specialists, and craftspeople, to preserve his spaces.

Looking at the bigger picture, this is a small triumph, full of lessons in resilience and collaboration, that will guide the rest of our restoration projects.

Architecture Office, Judd Foundation, Marfa, Texas | image by Matthew Millman © Judd Foundation

project info:

name: Donald Judd Architecture Office

project architects: Schaum Architects | @schaumarchitects

commissioner: Judd Foundation | @juddfoundation

location: Marfa, Texas

previous coverage: July 2024

completion: September 20th, 2025

photography: © Laura Wilson, © Matthew Millman | @matthewmillmanphoto

design team (Schaum Architects): Troy Schaum, Rosalyne Shieh, Andrea Brennan, Ian Searcy, Tucker Douglas, Ane Gonzalez Lara, Tsvetelina Zdraveva, Ryan Botts, Anneli Rice, Zhiyi Chen, Ekin Erar (formerly SCHAUM/SHIEH)

historic masonry consulting: Alpha Masonry (Sotirios Kotoulas, Kostas Kotoulas, Antonio Guerreiro)MEP engineering: GK Engineers (Davia Gernand)historic building consulting: Higgins Quasebarth & Partners (Cas Stachelberg, Jonathan Taylor)

historic carpentry: High Desert Woodworks (Jon Antonides)

environmental, preservation, and conservation consulting: Image Permanence Institute (Kelly Krish, Christopher Cameron)

MEP engineering: KCI Technologies (Nicholas Badke)

general contractors: Method Building Company (Faith Melgaard, Kyle Melgaard, Jimmy Magliozzi), RC Concepts (Juan Martinez, Jose Martinez)

engineering: Simpson Gumpertz & Heger (Nathaniel Smith), TYLin Engineering (Pat Arnett, Jennifer Chan)
energy engineering: Transsolar KlimaEngineering (Erik Olsen)

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The Judd Foundation announced plans for completing the restoration and rebuilding of American artist Donald Judd‘s Architecture Office after being halted by a fire in June 2021. One of eleven buildings associated with Judd in Marfa, Texas, recognized on the National Register of Historic Places, the Architecture Office will open to the public in September 2025, implementing the original restoration plans, which primarily focused on the stabilization of the historic structure and the protection of the works it houses. The first phase, from 2018 to 2019, restored the building envelope using traditional masonry techniques to repair and repoint the brick facade while maintaining its original aesthetic. The second phase, which began in 2019 and was near completion at the time of the fire, addressed the interior spaces and focused on preserving historic details and materials. The final construction phase will continue through 2024, followed by reinstallation of the building’s collection in mid-2025.

‘What Don made was about the here and now—about how the built environment is made with thought. The Architecture Office allows one to experience that idea and see the materials Don used to make it, to see his thinking‘ notes Flavin Judd, artistic director of Judd Foundation. ‘He believed that the preservation of art and architecture is the preservation of history, and that the ability to experience a culture physically is the best way to understand it.’

all images © Matthew Millman | @matthewmillmanphoto

the story of donald Judd’s architecture office in texas

Donald Judd (see more here) purchased the Glascock Building on Highland Avenue in downtown Marfa in 1990. Built at the turn of the 20th century, the 5,000-square-foot building was initially operated as a store and later housed various commercial businesses. Sited in direct proximity to his Architecture Studio, the street level of this two-story structure was renovated by Judd for use as his Architecture Office. The Architecture Office is a primary example of Judd’s repurposing of existing buildings and restoring historic structures in New York and Texas. The Architecture Office contains furniture and objects designed by Judd, as well as plans and models of his architectural projects in the US and Europe, including the Basel Bahnhof and his former Swiss residence, Eichholteren. Judd intended for the second floor to be a living space for guests. The largest of these spaces was intended to permanently house six paintings by John Chamberlain and furniture by Alvar Aalto. Judd Foundation will complete these plans as part of the restoration and rebuilding. 

Donald Judd’s Architecture Office in Marfa, Texas

Throughout the restoration and reconstruction of the Donald Judd Architecture Office, the Foundation, together with project architects SCHAUM/SHIEH, has utilized energy efficiency systems and sustainable materials that will improve the building’s performance while retaining its historic character. These include insulated glazing within traditional wood sash windows to shield against temperature extremes and recycled insulation to mitigate heat gain and loss. A passive outdoor air-cooling system in the ground floor office will harness the inherent swings in Marfa’s desert climate to stabilize the building’s indoor environment. New solar panels on the roof will provide for the building’s daily electrical load.

The Architecture Office is one of six major projects in the Judd Foundation’s long-term restoration plan for its buildings in Texas. Once restored, it will open as part of its public guided-visit program, providing access to the permanently installed working space that contains architectural models, building plans, design prototypes, and Judd’s furniture. A permanently installed living space on the building’s second floor, with paintings by John Chamberlain and furniture by Alvar Aalto, will open to the public for the first time. The restoration will further provide new program spaces for the Foundation and accommodation for visiting researchers and staff.

Judd Foundation will celebrate the opening of the Architecture Office on Saturday, September 20, 2025. The daylong event will include an open house along with a community celebration. The opening will be accompanied by a series of engaging public programs and special extended hours, which will be announced at a later date. This follows the historic restoration of Judd’s building at 101 Spring Street in New York, completed in 2013, which provided the model for the contextual approach, rigorous attention to detail, and commitment to quality employed for this project. 

the space will contain Judd’s architectural models, building plans, design prototypes, and furniture

project info:

name: Donald Judd Architecture Office by Judd Foundation | @juddfoundation

location: Marfa, Texas

architect: SCHAUM/SHIEH | @schaumshieh (Troy Schaum, Rosalyne Shieh, Andrea Brennan, Ian Searcy, Tucker Douglas, Ane Gonzalez Lara, Tsvetelina Zdraveva, Ryan Botts, Anneli Rice, Zhiyi Chen, Ekin Erar)

historic masonry consultant: Alpha Masonry (Sotirios Kotoulas, Kostas Kotoulas, Antonio Guerreiro)

MEP engineers: GK Engineers (Davia Gernand), KCI Technologies (Nicholas Badke)

historic building consultant: Higgins Quasebarth & Partners (Cas Stachelberg, Jonathan Taylor)
historic carpentry: High Desert Woodworks (Jon Antonides)

environmental, preservation & conservation consultant: Image Permanence Institute
(Kelly Krish, Christopher Cameron)
general contractors: Method Construction (Kyle Melgaard, Jimmy Magliozzi), RC Concepts
(Juan Martinez, Jose Martinez)

engineers: Simpson Gumpertz & Heger (Nathaniel Smith), Silman (Jennifer Chan, Pat Arnett)

energy engineer: Transsolar KlimaEngineering (Erik Olsen)

The post restoration resumes at donald judd’s architecture office after major fire in texas appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

installation view
photo by katherine du tiel

with influential work in art, design, and architecture, demonstrating his philosophy of form and utility, donald judd is considered one of the key figures of twentieth-century art. from tables and desks to chairs and beds, his designs emerged as a response to the lack of good, basic furniture he identified at the time. besides his roles as an artist, a designer, and a writer, judd was also a collector of furniture that embodied a material presence or clear intention. ‘specific furniture’ at SFMOMA reflects a holistic, comprehensive approach of the artist’s practice, combining his refined and nuanced artworks with other objects he chose to surround himself with. 

donald judd: specific furniture is on at SFMOMA from 14 july to 4 november, 2018.

installation view
photo by katherine du tiel

(also header image) newly fabricated donald judd furniture for visitor use outside the exhibition, 2018 (installation view, SFMOMA)
photo by katherine du tiel

donald judd, armchair, designed 1984, fabricated 1998; san francisco museum of modern art, gift of byron r. meyer
photo by katherine du tiel

architecture studio, judd foundation, marfa, texas
photo by matthew millman, © judd foundation

architecture studio, judd foundation, marfa, texas
photo by matthew millman, © judd foundation

4th floor, 101 spring street, judd foundation, new york
photo by matthew millman, © judd foundation

5th floor, 101 spring street, judd foundation, new york
photo by matthew millman, © judd foundation

library, 3rd floor, 101 spring street, judd foundation, new york
photo by matthew millman, © judd foundation

architecture office, judd foundation, marfa, texas
photo by matthew millman, © judd foundation

donald judd, drawing for birch plywood desks, 27 april 1990; pencil on paper; 8 1/4 x 11 9/16 in. (21 x 29.5 cm)
© judd foundation

donald judd, drawing for a birch plywood standing writing desk, 27 august 1990; pencil on paper; 8 1/4 x 11 9/16 in. (21 x 29.5 cm); © judd foundation

donald judd at eichholteren, 1990; courtesy judd foundation; © FBM studio;
image by franziska & bruno mancia

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2nd floor, 101 spring street, new york
image by charlie rubin © judd foundation licensed by ARS

more than 23 years after his death, today the american artist’s life and work is immortalized through the judd foundation. in its locations in new york city and marfa, texas, the organization maintains and preserves judd’s permanently installed living spaces, work studios, libraries, and archives. founded in 1996, the foundation seeks to foster a broader understanding of the artist’s legacy by offering visitors access to his personal spaces and artistic resources, and through the development of educational initiatives.

designboom visited the judd foundation to learn more about its mission and the artistic archive it houses.

2nd floor, 101 spring street, new york
image by charlie rubin © judd foundation licensed by ARS

the judd foundation’s new york city space is located at 101 spring street, a five story cast-iron building purchased by the artist in 1968. designed by architect nicholas whyte and constructed in 1870, the historic building served as judd’s residence, where he lived with his wife and two children, flavin and rainer. also his artistic studio, the site is considered as the first place judd developed the concept of permanent installation. a restoration by architecture research office (ARO) preserves his permanently installed spaces and enables the public to experience them as he intended.

3rd floor, 101 spring street, new york
image by charlie rubin © judd foundation licensed by ARS

across five floors unfolds a collection of carefully-restored architecture, installations, paintings and furniture installed in-situ as judd once had them. in a 1989 essay titled ‘101 spring street,’ judd wrote: ‘I spent a great deal of time placing the art and a great deal designing the renovation in accordance. everything from the first was intended to be thoroughly considered and to be permanent.’

library, 3rd floor, 101 spring street, new york
image by mauricio alejo © judd foundation licensed by ARS

the ground floor of the judd foundation is designated as exhibition space, and hosts a rotating series of shows. on view from now through december 9, 2017 is an exhibition of four paintings by yayoi kusama, a close friend of judd’s. the artists lived in the same building in the 1960s, where kusama conceived her first sculptural installations at the same time that judd constructed his. curated by flavin judd, the exhibition features recent and new works from kusama’s ongoing ‘infinity net’ series.

4th floor, 101 spring street, new york
image by charlie rubin © judd foundation licensed by ARS

the remaining floors are organized according to the artist’s original living and working arrangements. the second floor houses a kitchen and dining room bathed in natural light filtered through expansive glazed windows. a hidden architectural intervention — a tiny pop-up puppet theater originally installed for judd’s children — is tucked beneath a stairwell. the third and fourth floors are occupied by studio space and large-scale artworks, while the fifth floor hosts the bedroom (with a judd-designed bed frame positioned on the floor) and an expansive light piece by dan flavin that spans the western wall.

4th floor, 101 spring street, new york
image by charlie rubin © judd foundation licensed by ARS

donald judd furniture is placed alongside paintings by frank stella, light works by dan flavin, and installations by claes oldenburg, each carefully situated within meticulously-restored architectural environments. an eclectic assortment of elements and objects collected by judd throughout his life are also displayed, such as utensils, tapestries, books and old belongings. these items, presented as judd would have himself had them, offer an intimate view in to the artist’s personal life. 

5th floor, 101 spring street, new york
image by joshua white © judd foundation
donald judd art © judd foundation / artists rights society (ARS), new york licensed by ARS

the relationship between judd’s art, design, and the building’s architecture is a subtle and sensitive one. ‘very early with the building in new york on spring street, he [donald judd] was faced with what to do with architecture,’ his son flavin judd remarks on the theme. ‘while they are separate and distinct things, for don it was similar in that you didn’t want to ruin the building and its history with what you’re adding to it — you just want to improve it if you can, and if you have to. he’s going to the most basic level of building up what is already there…’

5th floor, 101 spring street, new york
image by charlie rubin © judd foundation
donald judd art © judd foundation / artists rights society (ARS), new york licensed by ARS

this idea of ‘building-up’ is ever present across judd’s design works. in extensive writings detailing his design thinking, judd outlined his philosophy of using simple and honest materials, following rigorous quality standards, framing furniture that fits the scale and proportion of a space, and his sometimes obsessive attention to detail.

on the second floor of the foundation, a judd-designed table and chair set exemplifies these values. 10 chairs made in wood are constructed with the same top form, but with 10 different bases comprising their bottom half. these variations on the theme — an idea central to judd’s creative thinking — subtly shifts the volume, expressing a new composition through subtle intervention. interactions result from open and closed geometries, inside and outside shapes, and both transparent and compact forms. 

installation view of yayoi kusama, ground floor, 101 spring street | image by sol hashemi © judd foundation
yayoi kusama art © yayoi kusama
david zwirner, new york; ota fine arts, tokyo/singapore; victoria miro, london; yayoi kusama inc.

‘I am often told that the furniture is not comfortable, and in that not functional,’ judd wrote in a 1993 essay titled ‘it’s hard to find a good lamp’. the source of the question is in the overstuffed bourgeois victorian furniture, which, as I said, never ceased. the furniture is comfortable to me. rather than making a chair to sleep in or a machine to live it, it is better to make a bed. a straight chair is best for eating or writing. the third position is standing.’

‘if you like simple forms in art you will not make complicated ones in architecture,’ donald judd elaborated in ‘on furniture’ in 1986. ‘complicated, incidentally, is the opposite of simple, not complex, which both may be’.

yayoi kusama, infinity-nets, 2017 | acrylic on canvas | 76 3/8 x 102 inches (194 x 259 cm)
image by sol hashemi © judd foundation
yayoi kusama art © yayoi kusama
david zwirner, new york; ota fine arts, tokyo / singapore; victoria miro, london; yayoi kusama inc.

donald judd furniture continues to be made to his original specifications. wooden objects — produced in a variety of hardwood and color plywood variations, and crafted entirely by hand — continue to be made in the united states. metal furniture — manufactured in painted aluminum colors, anodized aluminum, brass, and copper — is made in switzerland by lehni to the exact specifications in which it was first developed there in 1984. though largely industrially fabricated, the metal pieces are crafted with considerable handwork in the unique bending of the edges of each piece. more than 70 of judd’s designs, all uniquely stamped and numbered, are available for custom order.

yayoi kusama, infinity-nets, 2017
acrylic on canvas | 76 3/8 x 102 | inches (194 x 259 cm)
image © yayoi kusama, courtesy of david zwirner, new york; ota fine arts, tokyo / singapore; victoria miro, london; yayoi kusama inc

the relationship between judd’s art, design and architectural works are all deeply interwoven around his philosophies on space and scale. ‘proportion is very important to us, both in our minds and lives and as objectified visually, since it is thought and feeling undivided, since it is unity and harmony, easy or difficult, and often peace and quiet,’ judd wrote in his 1983 essay, ‘art and architecture’. ‘proportion is specific and identifiable in art and architecture and creates our space and time. proportion and in fact all intelligence in art is instantly understood, at least by some. it’s a myth that difficult art is difficult.’

pine library stool 42 and corner chair 15, clear anodized aluminum
image by brian ferry © judd foundation / donald judd furniture © judd foundation

chair 2, traffic red/RAL 3020 | image by brian ferry © judd foundation / donald judd furniture © judd foundation

corner chair 15, clear anodized aluminum
image by brian ferry © judd foundation / donald judd furniture © judd foundation

armchair 1, turquoise blue/RAL 5018 and stool 5, black blue/RAL 5004
image by brian ferry © judd foundation / donald judd furniture © judd foundation

table 12, copper (detail)
image by brian ferry © judd foundation / donald judd furniture © judd foundation

exterior of the donald judd foundation at 101 spring street, new york
image by joshua white © judd foundation licensed by ARS

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