Biography
Chafee was born in Chicago in 1932. Her mother, Christina Affeld Davidson, had studied archaeology and anthropology. Judith's biological father died before she was born, but had maintained investments for his family. The family moved to Tucson, Arizona, when Judith was five years old, shortly after her mother remarried Benson Bloom.
Chafee attended a boarding school in Chicago in the late 1940s, earned a visual arts degree at Bennington College in 1954, and enrolled in the School of Architecture at Yale University under the deanship of Paul Rudolph. In 1959, Chafee became the first woman to win the Koppers Architectural Student Design Competition for the design of a 150-bed hospital in Fairfield, Connecticut. However, the award ceremony was held in a men's club and she had to enter through the kitchen to receive the plaque. Chafee graduated from Yale as the only woman in her class and went on to work for Eero Saarinen, Paul Rudolph, Edward Larrabee Barnes, and The Architects Collaborative (Walter Gropius). At the age of 38 Chafee returned to her native Tucson, Arizona to start her own architectural practice.
Chafee worked out of her Tucson office for the remainder of her career, producing mostly single-family residences. Her projects are highly regarded and she became the first woman in Arizona to be named an AIA Fellow. Among other awards, Chafee was awarded the Academy of Rome fellowship to study architecture in Italy. She taught for many years at the University of Arizona, was a visiting professor at the University of Texas and the School of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis, and led a studio at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The Judith Chafee papers are held at the University of Arizona Special Collections library. Within the collection of Chafee's work includes her personal notebooks, photographs she took during her travels, written work, architectural drawings, sketches, and more.
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