Architecture of the Air: The Sound and Light Environments of Christopher Janney

Christopher Janney is a musician who designs buildings, an architect who makes music, an artist whose works invite interaction and engagement as opposed to passive appreciation. His big idea is, in essence, absurdly simple, yet if taken up and widely applied could have profound and far-reaching effects on the environments where we live, work and play. As documented in this fascinating new book, his Urban Musical Instruments are public installations or constructions that double as instruments that can be played by people in the vicinity. In Touch My Building (1998) a giant bank garage in North Carolina gains coloured glass panels and neon fins that trigger sound and light. Sonic Forest is an array of 25 aluminium columns fitted with speakers, lights and sensors that are triggered by human interaction, the music continually changing and evolving in response. It can be set up differently as the site demands. These works are what public art should be - intriguing, colourful, exciting and sensitive and responsive to the environment they are located in. The book documents these and other similar projects, as well as houses designed by Janney, including his own, that make good use of coloured glass to give the properties ever-shifting light and shade. Each project is well-illustrated with detailed plans and photographs, not just of the buildings but of design details like the 'Sun-Moon Clock' which tells the time for the rising and setting of sun and moon. As with the 'Urban Musical Instruments', this illustrates that one of the most interesting aspects of Janney's work is the attempt to connect high technology with nature, to overcome the anomie too often induced by the digital. He demands a hearing.