The Judd Foundation: Donald Judd's Living Art Laboratory
Why is it significant?
Look across the intersection of Spring and Mercer Streets at the dignified five-story cast-iron corner building at 101 Spring Street. Designed in 1870 by architect Nicholas Whyte for manufacturing firm D.S.
Key Facts
| Place | The Judd Foundation: Donald Judd's Living Art Laboratory |
|---|---|
| Address | 101 Spring St, New York, NY 10012, USA |
| Geo Coordinates | 40.72350, -73.99940 |
| Part of Walk | New York: SoHo Cast-Iron Architecture and Artist Loft Galleries |
| Generated | Generated |
Look across the intersection of Spring and Mercer Streets at the dignified five-story cast-iron corner building at 101 Spring Street. Designed in 1870 by architect Nicholas Whyte for manufacturing firm D.S. Walton & Company, this elegant structure features twenty-two floor-to-ceiling plate-glass windows wrapping both street facades. In 1968, visionary minimalist artist Donald Judd purchased the entire abandoned building for sixty-eight thousand dollars, making it his family home, studio, and living laboratory for modern art.
Judd revolutionized contemporary art philosophy inside this building by pioneering the concept of permanent installation. Rather than rotating temporary artworks through gallery walls, Judd believed that art, architecture, and daily life should exist in harmonious, permanent dialogue. On each floor, he installed masterworks by fellow modernists—including light installations by Dan Flavin, sculptures by John Chamberlain, and murals by Frank Stella—alongside furniture he designed himself. Judd maintained that the raw integrity of industrial cast-iron architecture provided the ideal spatial context for contemporary art, creating an enduring aesthetic dialogue between nineteenth-century manufacturing engineering and twentieth-century minimalist sculpture.
The five floors functioned with monastic precision: the ground floor served as an exhibition gallery, the second as a kitchen and family living space, the third as Judd's personal drafting studio, the fourth as an archive and dining room, and the fifth as a tranquil master bedroom with a monumental Flavin fluorescent tube piece spanning the entire length of the brick wall.
Looking up through the expansive corner windows from the street, one can still catch glimpses of the original wooden beam ceilings and pristine minimalist sculptures preserved exactly as Judd left them. The pristine integrity of the preserved lofts reflects Judd's uncompromising commitment to spatial purity and architectural honesty.
Walk half a block east to Broadway and turn north toward Prince Street to admire one of the most eccentric and flamboyant skyscrapers in New York.