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July 27, 2006
Chronographic opening in Detroit celebrates the Public Clock
Posted by Bob Jacobson
According to Michael Doyle on Archinect,
Chronographic was dedicated in Detroit this morning [Monday, July 24], to celebrate the city's 305th birthday. Chronographic is a public time keeping machine (read: clock) designed and fabricated by o2 Creative Solutions. Located in the front window of the historic Himelhoch Building, the hands of Detroit's newest pedestrian-scale landmark are tubes of light which track across two large photo-murals on custom designed robotic carts.
Public clocks once played a significant role in the experience of civic life. Everyone within earshot simultaneously experienced the same passage of time and organized their lives accordingly.
Louis Mumford is perhaps the best known historian of science and technology to have examined
the importance of public clocks. The personal wristwatch and now, digital clocks in every appliance, by eliminating this shared experience, have played a tacit role in the dissolution of community. Perhaps Chronographic can turn back the hands of time and help to restore Detroit's sense of community, hard pressed of late by changes in the global economy and the composition and spirit of Detroit itself.
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BOB JACOBSON is fascinated by the experience of experience. A planner and technologist, Bob has a Ph.D. in Urban Planning & Design from UCLA. He's been a policy researcher, technology CEO, science writer, and consultant. As a Fulbright Scholar, he studied cellular telephony's impacts on transborder communities in the Nordic Arctic Circle. Bob edited Information Design (MIT Press 2000) and is now writing a book on the theory and practice of creating edifying, transformative experiences.
PAULA THORNTON says, "Understanding human behavior (economics), optimizing interactions (design) and facilitating conversations (markets), are the means to achieve strategic differentiation. This is the focus of our discipline. It is not a 'nice to have'‚ and is not, like documentation once was, an afterthought. It is the means by which to start a strategic discussion and the means by which to drive a tactical initiative. All design should be evidence-based."
