Judd Foundation sets sights on Marfa

In June 2013, the Judd Foundation performed a $23 million restoration of Donald Judd’s former SoHo residence and studio at 101 Spring Street, now open to the public. Following the completion of that project, the foundation has now shifted its focus onto its Marfa territory. “Our to-do list is miles long,” said Flavin Judd, son of the esteemed minimalist artist, who first began visiting Marfa in the early seventies as a respite from New York City, and eventually bought the 16 buildings that comprise 71,839 square feet of space held and maintained by Judd Foundation. First on that list, Judd said, is the architecture office at 101 North Highland Avenue, located across the street from the town’s post office. Judd stressed that the primary goal is restoration, not change. “It’s not like we’re going to have a Frank Gehry building on the corner somewhere,” Judd said. “The architecture office needs quite a bit of work. We’re looking to update the mechanical and interior, but we won’t change any installed spaces.” Judd, who also oversaw the design at 101 Spring Street, applied a similar approach to his father’s New York City residence by tending more toward preservation than revision. But in spite of his efforts to honor his father’s and the town’s history, the Marfa that Donald Judd and his family once occupied has since evolved dramatically. “It was a town of ranchers and small businesses and a lot of down-to-earth people, and now it’s much more on the radar. The Marfa I grew up with is almost gone now but there’s still enough of it there,” Judd said. He added, “I’m one of those people who has a nostalgia for the debt-ridden, dirty seventies for inexplicable reasons.”...more