Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Judge (Bernard) papers
0000335
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Contributing Institution:
Architecture and Design Collection, Art, Design & Architecture Museum
Title: Bernard Judge papers
Creator:
Judge, Bernard
Identifier/Call Number: 0000335
Identifier/Call Number: 254
Physical Description:
32.149 Linear Feet
(25 boxes, 36 flat file folders)
Date (inclusive): circa 1959-2012
Physical Location: Box 1-23/ADC - regular
Box 24, 25/ADC - oversize*
36 Flat File Folders/ADC - flat file
Language of Material:
English
.
Gift of Blaine Mallory and Bernard Judge, 2013. Additional gift made by Judge in 2014 and Blaine in 2022.
First donation made 16 August 2013 includes publications, clippings, photographs, sketches, and drawings for Judge's Triponent
house (also called the Dome), Los Angeles, and drawings for the remodel of the Subway building, Los Angeles, as well as photographs
of a stadium roof structure designed with Jeffrey Lindsay. Tetiaroa materials were donated by Judge in 2014.
Partially processed collection, open for use by qualified researchers.
Bernard Judge papers, Architecture and Design Collection. Art, Design & Architecture Museum; University of California, Santa
Barbara.
Bernard Judge (1931-2021) is a Los Angeles architect who was born in New York City and grew up in Fontainbleau, France; Managua,
Nicaragua; and Mexico City. His father was an architect and helped Judge obtain a job, after high school, working with Harrison
and Abramovitz on the United Nations building in New York City. After attending L'Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, Judge completed
his architectural studies at the University of Southern California (USC) in 1960.
While still a student at USC, Judge began working on the "Triponent/Dome House" inspired by the geodesic domes designed by
Buckminster Fuller. Judge built the Dome House himself, with the help of USC fellow students, in the Hollywood Hills and lived
there for a short period. Several architectural journals and popular publications published the Dome, including the
Los Angeles Times Home Magazine.
Judge started his own architectural firm, The Environmental Systems Group, in 1965. He concentrated on residential and commercial
design with a focus on local environments and culture. Judge also has done preservation work. He developed the first detailed
study for saving and preserving Rudolph Schindler's King's Road House, where Judge had lived during the 1960s. In 1968, he
began work on his own, second, Los Angeles residence, which he called the Tree House, for which he was awarded a U.S. patent.
The house, a prototype designed to be suitable in various terrains, as a single dwelling or grouped for multiple dwellings,
was featured in
Sunset magazine, among other publications. His focus on environmentally sensitive design led to a decades long project beginning
in the 1970s for the actor Marlon Brando, who wanted to build a resort on the Tahitian atoll of Tetiaroa. Not all of Judge's
plans for Tetiaroa were realized, but he continued to work on the project until the 1990s. Judge published a memoir in 2011,
Dancing with Brando, which describes the project and his experiences in Tahiti and with Brando. Bernard Judge died on November 15, 2021 in the
Triponent/Dome house.
The Bernard Judge papers span 40 linear feet and date from circa 1959 to circa 1999. The collection includes his personal
papers, correspondence, research files, newspaper and magazine clippings, photographs, sketches, architectural drawings and
presentation boards. The bulk of the material relates to three projects which served as intensive research and design experiences
for Judge: the Dome house; the Tree House; and designs for Marlon Brando of a residence and resort in Tahiti, on Tetiaroa.
The collection also includes drawings and other materials related to nearly 20 other projects designed by Judge for sites
in the U.S., Canada, and Tahiti.
The following arrangement scheme for this collection was imposed during processing in the absence of a usable original order.
The collection is organized in five series: personal papers, Dome house, Judge house, other architectural projects, and Tetiaroa.
The series are organized chronologically. The content that pertains to each project is arranged by format (for example: drawings,
photographs, magazine clippings) and then by date.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Architectural drawings
Architectural firms -- California
Architectural photographs
Architecture -- California
Architecture -- California -- 20th century
Architecture -- California -- Los Angeles -- 20th century
Clippings (Books, newspapers, etc.)
Color slides
Conceptual drawings
Contracts
Correspondence
Hotels (public accommodations)
Presentation drawings (proposals)
Negatives
Architects -- California
Judge, Bernard
Lindsay, Jeffrey
Fuller, R. Buckminster (Richard Buckminster)