Product Code Database
Clock towers are a specific type of structure that house a turret clock and have one or more on the upper exterior walls. Many clock towers are freestanding structures but they can also adjoin or be located on top of another building. Some other buildings also have clock faces on their exterior but these structures serve other main functions.
Clock towers are a common sight in many parts of the world with some being iconic buildings. One example is the Elizabeth Tower in London (usually called "Big Ben", although strictly this name belongs only to the bell inside the tower).
The mechanism inside the tower is known as a turret clock. It often marks the hour (and sometimes segments of an hour) by sounding large bells or chimes, sometimes playing simple musical phrases or tunes. Some clock towers were previously built as Bell towers and then had clocks added to them. As these structures fulfil the definition of a tower they can be considered to be clock towers.
The use of clock towers dates back to Ancient history. The earliest clock tower was the Tower of the Winds in Athens, which featured eight and was created in the 1st century BC during the period of Roman Greece. In its interior, there was also a water clock (or clepsydra), driven by water coming down from the Acropolis.
In Song dynasty China, an astronomical clock tower was designed by Su Song and erected at Kaifeng in 1088, featuring a liquid escapement mechanism.Bodde, Derk (1991), Chinese Thought, Society, and Science, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, p. 140. In England, a clock was put up in a clock tower, the medieval precursor to Big Ben, at Westminster, in 1288;Clocks, Encyclopædia Britannica 5, 835 (1951).Frederick Tupper, Jr., 'Anglo-Saxon Dæg-Mæl', Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, Vol. 10, No. 2 (1895), p. 130, citing Archæologia, v, 416. and in 1292 a clock was put up in Canterbury Cathedral. The oldest surviving turret clock formerly part of a clock tower in Europe is the Salisbury Cathedral clock, completed around 1390. A clock put up at St. Albans, in 1326, 'showed various astronomical phenomena'.
Al-Jazari of the Artuqid dynasty in Upper Mesopotamia constructed an elaborate clock called the "castle clock" and described it in his Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices in 1206. It was about high, and had multiple functions alongside timekeeping. It included a display of the zodiac and the solar and lunar paths, and a pointer in the shape of the Crescent that travelled across the top of a , moved by a hidden cart and causing automatic doors to open, each revealing a mannequin, every hour.Howard R. Turner (1997), Science in Medieval Islam: An Illustrated Introduction, p. 184. University of Texas Press, .Donald Routledge Hill, "Mechanical Engineering in the Medieval Near East", Scientific American, May 1991, p. 64-69. (cf. Donald Routledge Hill, Mechanical Engineering ) It was possible to re-program the length of day and night daily in order to account for the changing lengths of day and night throughout the year, and it also featured five musicians who automatically play music when moved by operated by a hidden camshaft attached to a water wheel.
Line (mains) synchronous tower clocks were introduced in the United States in the 1920s.
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> archive) National Park Service. page 10. Retrieved November 9, 2017. "The statue was … hoisted to the top of the tower in fourteen sections in 1894." when the tower was topped out and the building partially occupied, ""History of City Hall: 1886-1890". (archive) Retrieved November 9, 2017. "1889: Mayor Fitler moves into completed offices on west side." "History of City Hall: 1891-1901". (archive) Retrieved November 9, 2017. "1891: State Supreme Court opens in permanent courtroom." until 1908.
Taller buildings have had clock faces added to their existing structure such as the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, with a clock added in 2000. The building has a roof height of , and an antenna height of . The NTT Docomo Yoyogi Building in Tokyo, with a clock added in 2002, has a roof height of , and an antenna height of .
The Abraj Al Bait, a hotel complex in Mecca constructed in 2012, has the largest and highest clock face on a building in the world, with its Makkah Royal Clock Tower having an occupied height of , and a tip height of . "Makkah Royal Clock Tower ". skyscrapercenter.com. Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. Retrieved May 20, 2018. The tower has four clock faces, two of which are in diameter, at about high. "Dokaae Tower Clock And Crescent" . pct.ae. Premier Composite Technologies. Retrieved May 21, 2018.
|
|
