Judith Munk Papers, 1917-2008 (SMC 157)

Judith Kendall Horton Munk was born April 10, 1925 in San Gabriel, California to Winter Davis Horton and Edith Kendall Horton. She started working as a draftsman and cartographer for the Pentagon and then two private firms in 1941. After enrolling at Bennington College in 1942, she studied with architect Richard Neutra, earning a B.A. in arts and architecture in 1946. Munk was admitted to the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1946, but contracted polio and was unable to attend. She relocated to San Diego to recover, staying at the home of her grandmother, Lena Kendall, who would later donate the lands to the University of California as part of the Kendall-Frost Marsh Reserve. Munk, who used mobility aids for much of her life, attended the University of Southern California School of Architecture, but found her access to classes limited by lack of wheelchair access.

Munk began studying sculpture under San Diego artist Donal Hord, and later helped to bring his sculpture Spring Stirring to Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She designed and built several houses in Southern California, including Villa Surf, the famed Sunset Cliffs home of Dan Dixon. She also illustrated Acoustical Designing in Architecture for Vern O. Knudsen and Cyril O. Harris in 1950. From 1951 to 1953 she worked as a museum display artist at the Scripps Aquarium under Sam Hinton, and was featured in the December 1952 edition of National Geographic, creating models for the Aquarium. She met oceanographer Walter Heinrich Munk (1917-2019) while working at SIO and they married in 1953. The couple lived briefly in the Red Rest cottage overlooking La Jolla Cove. They raised three daughters together, Lucian, Edie and Kendall; Lucian died in childhood of a congenital heart condition.

In 1952 Judith purchased lot number six of the Scripps Estates Associates subdivision in La Jolla, land that would later become the Munks' home, Seiche. She designed the guest house (1953) and the main house (1954) in the Modern post-and-beam architectural style and landscaped the grounds. Seiche was named by Judith's mother for "a standing wave oscillating in a body of water." Walter Munk kept his home office at Seiche, overlooking Sumner Canyon and the submarine Scripps Canyon. Judith Munk added an outdoor theater called The Folly in 1982. Many of her own artworks, often featuring women and children, filled the grounds. The estate served as the site of scientific meetings, faculty recruitment, dramatic and musical performances, and community events throughout the Munks' lifetimes. Seiche was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2021.

Judith Munk continued her architectural work, contributing to the design of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics laboratories (1963 and 1993), the UC San Diego International Center (1970), the Scripps Crossing pedestrian bridge (1993), and the Robert Paine Scripps Forum (2008). She participated in the renovations of the Old Director's House and the George H. Scripps Memorial Marine Biological Laboratory at SIO, and the Mandeville Center and the International Center at UC San Diego. Some of her unbuilt projects include plans for two additional colleges at UC San Diego, a pedestrian crossing over Pepper Canyon, and two public performance spaces in La Jolla: the Amphiplaza on Girard Avenue, and Palm Circle at Ellen Browning Scripps Park. Her artwork includes a bronze sculpture of Roger Revelle, and the medal for the Oceanography Society's Walter Munk Award, whose inaugural recipient was Walter Munk in 1993.

The Munks traveled extensively, and Judith wrote detailed travel narratives in the form of diaries and letters to her family. She also coauthored "Venice Hologram" with Walter Munk (Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 1972) on the conservation of artwork and architecture in Venice. Judith was a member of the La Jolla Town Council and served on numerous planning committees for La Jolla and UC San Diego. The first IGPP laboratory was renamed the Walter and Judith Munk Laboratory for Geophysics in honor of the Munks in 1993. She was named an honorary member of the San Diego chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 2004, and inducted into the San Diego Women's Hall of Fame in 2008. Judith Munk died on May 19, 2006 in La Jolla, California.

Walter Munk Papers. SMC 17. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego Library.