Yesterday, Center for Architecture in New York opened “Obdurate Space: Architecture of Donald Judd,” an exhibition centered on five built and unrealized projects by late American artist, sculptor, and designer Donald Judd. Judd is known for creating modern sculptures, furniture, and context-sensitive architectural spaces and is often associated with the minimalism movement of the early 1960s. “Untitled” (1969), a vertical stack of 10 polished copper units installed on a wall with 9-inch intervals and the renovation of 101 Spring St., a five-story cast-iron building he purchased in 1968 in New York, which later served as his personal residence and studio, are among his most notable works. “Central to Judd’s idea of architecture was the construction of space full and obdurate; architecture not borrowed from nature but of purposeful thought; not for causes that architecture cannot affect but for the peaceful contemplation of living in that space and the environment beyond,” according to a press release by the Center for Architecture.
Curated by architect Claude Armstrong, AIA, and University of Florida College of Design, Construction & Planning associate professor Donna Cohen—both of whom served as Judd’s architectural assistants in the 1980s—take a closer look at 10 years of Judd’s architecture from 1984 to 1994 (during which the artist created an extensive array of architectural projects). The exhibition features a selection of models of Judd’s works, including the Concrete Buildings in Marfa, Texas, and Bahnhof Ost Basel in Switzerland that are exclusively tailored for this exhibition, along with photographs, drawings, and renderings of the architect’s unrealized projects.
Levi Wiegand
Bahnhof Ost Basel (now Peter Merian Haus)Basel, Switzerland Façade concept and design by Donald Judd in collaboration with Zwimpfer Partners and Bürgen Nissen WentziaffModel by Jamie Lindsey, Pei- Fen Yeh, Jun Li, and Jiali Wang
“Our motivation for the exhibition, for the observations here, together with new models, drawings, and project descriptions, is to share Judd’s work in architecture with a wider public and to connect that moment to the present,” said Cohen in the press release.
“Obdurate Space: Architecture of Donald Judd” will remain on display through March 5, 2018.
Courtesy Claude Armstrong
Concrete BuildingsMarfa, TexasInterior view of nine-meter Concrete Building
Olivia Alfonso, Laura Rodriguez, and Zachary Wignall/ Courtesy University of Florida
Kunsthaus Bregenz, Archive, Administration and Office BuildingBregenz, AustriaExterior perspective, digital
Hector Garcia/Courtesy University of Florida
Cleveland ProposalCleveland, OhioBird’s-eye view, digital collage
