More than three decades after Donald Judd’s death, the buildings he transformed across Marfa remain central to understanding his work.
They also present an unusual preservation challenge.
Judd did not treat architecture merely as a container for art. The buildings, their interiors, the objects placed within them and the surrounding West Texas landscape formed complete environments. Preserving them requires more than repairing roofs and stabilizing walls. It means protecting the relationships Judd established among art, architecture, furniture, light and space.
That philosophy guides a series of completed, continuing and planned Judd Foundation projects across Marfa and at Judd’s remote ranch properties.
The most recent major accomplishment came in September 2025, when Judd’s Architecture Office opened to the public following seven years of restoration and rebuilding.
The project began in 2018 with work on the building’s exterior envelope. Craftspeople used traditional masonry methods to repair and repoint the brick façade while retaining its historic appearance. Leaks were repaired, and original windows — most of which had been boarded over — were restored or rebuilt.
Every exterior wood window and the historic wood-and-copper storefronts were reconstructed by hand. Original brass hardware from doors and windows was refinished and returned to use. Energy-efficient glass was added without significantly changing the historic appearance or operation of the windows and woodwork.
Interior work began in 2020, preparing the Architecture Office for the return of Judd’s artworks and design objects and for its eventual use by visitors.
Rooms permanently arranged by Judd required particular care. Floors were repaired and stabilized, while doors and windows were improved to protect the objects inside. The second-floor spaces were restored to resemble the conditions in which Judd left them, although the building now has upgraded bathrooms, a modernized kitchen and more efficient heating, cooling and lighting.
Climate control posed one of the project’s most difficult questions. The objects had previously remained in unconditioned rooms exposed to substantial swings in temperature and humidity. Conventional museum systems, however, were determined to be neither practical nor desirable in Marfa’s remote, arid environment.
The project team instead developed a combination of passive design and limited mechanical systems. An outside-air system monitors the desert’s natural daily temperature changes and adjusts the building’s interior conditions accordingly.
Other improvements include insulated, low-emissivity glass incorporated into historic wood-sash windows and recycled denim insulation used to reduce heat gain and loss.
A new steel canopy was also installed to match the configuration of the building’s original canopy, which no longer existed during Judd’s lifetime. The reconstructed canopy protects the installed interior spaces from the intense afternoon sun and the resulting increase in temperature.
The Architecture Office is one piece of a much larger preservation effort.
At La Mansana de Chinati, commonly called the Block, the foundation completed a major restoration in September 2023. Judd began developing the multibuilding complex as his Marfa residence and working environment after purchasing the property in the 1970s.
Work at the Block included reconstructing the Winter Garden, improving drainage throughout the property and rehabilitating portions of the adobe wall surrounding the complex.
More than 2,000 linear feet of French drains were installed, along with a rainwater collection system capable of holding 10,000 gallons. A filtration system was added to the swimming pool and concealed in a vault on the grounds.
The Winter Garden was reconstructed using more than 2,500 adobe blocks made at the site with material salvaged from the original construction.
Additional work at the Block remains ahead.
A two-story wood-frame building constructed in 1922 originally served as the quartermaster’s office for the military complex that occupied the property. Judd purchased it in 1974 and converted it into a family residence.
He removed most of its interior walls and bathroom, created two mirrored bedrooms at opposite corners of the ground floor and added an 8-foot-wide, open-riser staircase. The staircase led to a second-floor sleeping loft. Restoration of that second floor is now in the design and planning stages.
The foundation is also planning the reconstruction of portions of the Block’s adobe perimeter wall. Judd began building the wall in the 1970s using a combination of repurposed adobe bricks from other Marfa structures and new bricks made on the property with local techniques.
Although the foundation had stabilized the wall’s most vulnerable areas, high winds later brought down a section along Kelly Street. Structural engineers, architects and contractors were brought in to stabilize what remained and remove the debris.
Elsewhere in Marfa, the foundation is planning facilities intended to make Judd’s papers, art and design work more accessible to researchers while providing modern standards of protection.
A proposed Archive Building complex adjacent to the Block will hold the Judd Foundation Archives and a substantial collection of drawings, prints, paintings, furniture prototypes, objects and other works on paper.
The project will combine a purpose-built facility with a restored 1920s mercantile building. Plans call for climate-controlled storage, collection-care facilities and research spaces where visiting scholars can consult the archives, collections and Judd’s catalogue raisonné.
The complex is being designed to produce net-zero carbon emissions through sustainable construction and renewable energy.
The planned restoration of the Print Building would preserve 26 rooms on the second floor of the historic structure. Those rooms were once part of the Alta Vista Hotel and later the Crews Hotel.
Under the foundation’s plans, the rooms would display rotating selections from a complete set of Judd’s prints intended for installation in the building. The ground floor would be restored for visitor services. That project remains in the planning stages.
The foundation’s preservation work eventually will extend well beyond Marfa.
Las Casas, Judd’s most remote ranch residence, sits about 80 miles outside the city. Future plans call for restoring the property and completing freestanding architectural projects Judd designed for the site, including a bunkhouse and a three-building stable complex.
Taken together, the projects reflect the scale of Judd’s presence in and around Marfa. His legacy is not contained within one museum or collection. It is distributed across offices, homes, hotels, ranch buildings, adobe walls and spaces he carefully altered and arranged.
The foundation’s work is therefore both restoration and continuation: preserving what Judd completed, protecting what he installed and considering how unfinished plans might become part of the landscape he shaped.
