What is the purpose of a clock on a contemporary building?

That’s a good question!  Let’s look at a somewhat recent example:

This is the Boeing World Headquarters, 100 N. Riverside Drive, Chicago, IL.  Built in 1990, designed by Perkins and Will. Over a million square feet, 36 stories tall and capped with … a clock.  It’s even positioned above the corporate logo!

I think it’s kind of amusing the ‘block-ish’ design, very ‘modern’ skeleton clock is located above the Boeing corporate logo which is very Jet-Age in it’s swoopy features.  It’s also interesting to note as a functional clock, it’s way, way up there, hard to see, and perpendicular to the River and the Loop. But it’s a detail feature which the architects must have felt was necessary to be the capstone of the building.  Think of it… not but 20 years earlier Boeing was working with NASA putting men on the moon, but they incorporated this vintage feature of Time for their corporate headquarters. How could this be?

I believe it’s subtle, yet significant – in a word:  Importance.

A clock is a feature which has taken-on this role of significance.  When Grand Central Terminal in New York city was opened in 1913, the most prominent feature was a clock with a glass dial by Louis B. Tiffany a year later.

Of course, back then, Public Time served a much greater function as railroads became the reason for a common time standard; people needed to know the true time to catch the train!  The Station clock was the time standard from which you would set your own pocketwatch… But the idea of a Significant Feature Should Be A Clock has stayed with us.

So… the concept of a Time Feature still bears relevance today.  We recently finished a project for James Madison University. They built a new cafeteria building and the capstone feature was a three-sided clock tower!  The Architects must have felt this idea of Public Time was beneficial to their new communal building where people congregate.

The CEO of Mobatime, the manufacturer of all the clocks for Swiss Railways (and our vendor), once said to me ‘clocks make people comfortable’.  It took a while to understand this, but it’s really true. The huge clocks at the brand new facility at JMU really make the place ‘comfortable’.  Functional Welcoming Comfort. A clock has become an icon of Significance and Welcome.

A time feature on a building doesn’t have to be this grand, but it certainly can add significance.

Here’s an example of a new office building in Steven’s Point, Wisconsin and you can see how nicely the clock we manufactured sets-off the front façade.  It’s a ‘welcoming’ feature.  

What better way to make a new building inviting than with a nice big clock…