Architect:  Walt Smith - Skidmore Owings and Merrill
Light Artist:  James Turrell

American installation and light artist James Turrell is one of our time’s most important visual artists. As his massive land, sky, and space art project at Roden Crater in Arizona nears the end of its 30-year construction, an art installation sure to become one of the extraordinary works of art of our time, his rise to the top of the art world is assured.

Throughout his career Turrell has thrilled art enthusiasts around the world with his light and space installations. His work involves spiritual experiences that impact both body and mind, often using the properties of light to communicate feelings of transcendence.

One of Turrell’s latest and most unique projects found a home in Greenwich, Connecticut. Richard Baker, President/COO of National Realty & Development Corporation, commissioned a permanent art installation by James Turrell using the medium of fiber optic lighting and LEDs. Baker was so eager to have Turrell display his work that he constructed a special building to accommodate the installation, a structure on Baker’s own residence known as the “party barn,” designed by architect Walt Smith of Skidmore Owings and Merrill. 

In the basement of the barn are various rooms used for exercise and relaxation – pool, workout room, bath – all fiber optic illuminated using Martin FiberSource CMY 150 illuminators. The FiberSource CMY 150 is a 150-watt illuminator capable of emitting an extremely broad spectrum of color with full-range continuous dimming. Turrell has framed each room in panes of fiber optic light, a design that repeats throughout the space and hallways. The window frames of light are all created with stranded braided sidelight fiber powered by FiberSource CMY 150 illuminators.

In the pool area, each end of the space is framed in fiber optic with submerged 3M HL solid core fiber illuminating the pool itself. Also, Color Kinetics LED Icove lighting backlights LCD glass windows and a lower band of LED lighting encircles the room. The staircases are lit with fiber optic endlight, and in the bathroom fiber optic lightbars illuminate a glass sink. A custom fiber harness even outlines the showerhead.

Some 24 FiberSource CMY 150’s are used throughout the installation, supplied by Sound Stage Systems. The entire installation is controlled via a PC-based Martin ProScenium, a visual DMX-512 lighting control package with remote touch screens for easy access.

Martin Architectural’s Joe Zamore served as project consultant with Karl Kieslich of Sound Stage Systems acting as system integrator. Installation programming was by Ben Pearcy under James Turrell’s direction.