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Postcard from Laura: Does anyone know what time it is?

Istanbul and the Dardanelles, Turkey, Sept. 14: Depending upon where I am in the world, I have the worst time knowing what time it really is. Often I am reminded of the song about time sung by the music group Chicago. I try and whistle this tune, especially when riding on a train run by the Chicago Transit Authority, which is a very fitting concept since this hometown music group was originally known as CTA.

Laura C. Johnson contemplates the concept of time in front of a case of 5th century BC glass beads and artifacts near the ancient site of Troy in Turkey.

The two old public clocks made famous by the much-loved American artist Norman Rockwell on one of his Saturday Evening Post covers are still kept running as icons in Chicago on the historic Marshall Field’s building, now Macy’s, off of State Street.

Other than those two, there are few older street clocks on Jewelers’ Row, or in the suburbs of Chicago, such as Oak Park, which are still kept running. This sad fact struck me as being very curious until one day I forgot to put on my wristwatch and, while on the elevator of a 54-story high-rise in the Loop, I asked a few people, “Does anybody really know what time it is?” Not one person had on a wristwatch. Not because, like me, they had carelessly forgot to put it on, but because almost no one wears one any more. Several people in the elevator instead fumbled around for their iphones. I concluded that, no one cares — publicly — to know what time it was.

Their time predictions were reconfirmed when we got outside, trusting the old, tried-and-true Field’s clocks instead of the electronic gadgets of today’s hip crowds, to which I do not belong.

I wear a wristwatch, usually everyday, because it is like a piece of art on my arm, but, moreover, I love timepieces because time-keeping devices remind me of a very happy period in my early working career at The Time Museum, formerly in Rockford’s Clock Tower Resort.

For several years, on Mondays, when the museum was closed to the general public, we used the day to check the accuracy of the various long-case clocks and to clean and reset the dozens of other working pieces. John Shallcross, the horologist, or timekeeper, who fittingly was from England and had worked at the Greenwich Observatory, wore a white lab coat like a doctor whose specialty was keeping the clocks healthy. He walked around with a clipboard and sharp pencil in hand, and would carefully record the clocks’ statistics. We all loved our jobs, except for the fact that it was impossible to be late and get away with it.

via Postcard from Laura: Does anyone know what time it is? – Rockford, IL – Rockford Register Star.

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September 17, 2012
Museum of Troy at Çanakkale / RTA-Office with DOME Partners

By Christopher Henry

The design of the Museum of Troy at Çanakkale has been carried out by the atelier RTA-Office, led by Santiago Parramón with offices in Barcelona and Shanghai, in collaboration with the Turkish atelier DOME Partners (Istanbul). The aim is that the building rises in the Turkish area of Çanakkale but aspires to be a global focus through its expression and display of the culture of a civilization. A project that will act as a generator for social activity, research and culture.

rendering

Both RTA-Office and Dome Partners agreed to design the building in such a way that it would become an event generator, that a centre for cultural expression would become an international lure. A work that would launch an area with the objective of re-evaluating and re-establishing the immense worth that this civilization had at a global level.

The strategy consists in the design of a unique piece, a jewel, that on the one hand will complement the ruins of Troy, and on the other be valued in its own right. The starting point is to recapture with the utmost sensitivity the magnificence of this civilization that in its golden era created the most beautiful objects, full of splendor and creativity.

The Museum stands in nature as a work delicately crafted by the hands of artisans. A piece that stands out from the land but at the same time respects the dignity of the natural environment. Its lines are reminiscent of the geometry of Troy; its strained curves, planes and intersections that cut suddenly, the meetings between concave and convex. Movement is captured in the building’s surfaces, where one detects the influence of the artist Boccioni in the interaction of an object in movement with the space around it, through the intuitive search for a single form that creates a continuous space.

rendering

A venue of experience
A space that enables everything from a contemplative walk to group activity. A well organized ensemble that advances a system and multiplicity in its possibilities and activities. A place that proposes we “live Troy” as an experience, not somewhere merely informative This experience begins on arrival when, after parking in the car park, well away from the main road, the visitor is directed to the building via a deliberate trip through olive groves that provide shade, cool and texture, and through which one discovers the building.

Beneath an imposing wooden “umbrella” one finds the building events program. In the interior is a space of dynamic and changing perceptions, an open, obstacle-free area, a continuation of nature. A great square, open to the exterior like a receiver and distributor of activity from which one accesses the bar-buffet and children’s play area. In front of this one finds the commercial zone and the amenities, and to the west the ticket sales.

Through this low area, appearing to have been excavated, giving the feeling of entering an archaeological site, is the control area and the main entrance to the Museum. This is where the perception of space changes radically; one is once again under the truly massive structural cover of the building and, in front, there is a ramp, following the original topography of the land, which leads to the exhibition areas. At the end is the archaeological research zone in an area excavated from the ground, three metres below the access level to the permanent exhibition space. Thus visitors can see the pieces that are being worked on and researched in the field.

The restaurant has a great exterior terrace over a large platform of water in which the adjacent olive groves and recreation areas are reflected. At the end of the permanent and temporary exhibition spaces, as an end to the journey, are the auditorium and a bar. It is the foyer that creates the connection between these two purposes and facilitates the use of the bar and foyer for events, conferences and congresses. Following the visit to the museum space one descends towards the great hall down some splendid ramps.

The building also is also full of daily activity with the management offices, the commissary and the researchers situated in the west wing where the topography rises some four metres over the access zone to the main hall. Continuous interior and exterior spaces inter-communicate and transport the natural light that penetrates the skin of the building with the aim of producing an agreeable and comfortable atmosphere.

model

Creation of space
The principal characteristic of the Museum of Troy is the creation of space versus the creation of form. The result is a single volume configured as a unitary whole. An elegant body of refined and sinuous, interlocking lines that surround and allow one to traverse. A unique building, a “Great Museum”, an expression of an era and a great vision of the future. Poetry and technology for the human condition.

The strong material expression is achieved by using a single material, wood, which has been specially chosen, both for the structure and the skin of this building, for its elegant and evocative texture, its comfort and because it pertains to nature and to the location. It is also the only material that could provide the building with zero CO2 emissions.

Sustainability and energy efficiency
A fusion between the latest modeling technology and the construction of space in three dimensions, a highly refined exercise in the harmonious integration of the countryside and a strong commitment to sustainability in energy efficiency and the fitting out of the building.

The aim is that the building is environmentally responsible, profitable and healthy, so as to be able to live and work in it with a good quality of life. To this end synergies between disciplines and technologies have been established. The RTA-Office and Dome Partners proposal seeks to make use of the best practices in the design and construction phase to reduce significantly or eliminate any negative impact of the building on the environment and thus achieve Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED™) so that the building be certified “green” by the Green Building Council (WorldGBC), New York. A new global benchmark in this field. The aim of the energy efficiency in the new building is an energy saving of about 70% and the maximum energy efficiency rating “A”. This is based on three fundamental pillars: economy, sustainability and quality of life.

Architect: RTA-Office, DOME Partners
Location: Çanakkale, Turkey

July 12, 2011
Defences at Troy reveal larger town

Ancient Troy was much bigger than previously thought, and may have housed as many as 10,000 people, new excavations have revealed. The lower town, in which most of the population would have lived, may have been as large as 40 hectares (100 acres), according to Professor Ernst Pernicka. The new data include two large storage pithoi found near the city’s boundary ditch. The pots, which may have been as much as 2 metres high, were kept in or near homes, suggesting that houses in the lower town stretched to its limits, another indication that Troy’s lower town was fully inhabited and the city was bigger than revealed in previous expeditions, Professor Pernicka told reporters at the opening of a new exhibition on Troy. “They were used for storing water, oil or maybe grain.”

Troy has been a controversial site ever since Heinrich Schliemann and Frank Calvert pinpointed it at Hissarlik, near the Turkish city of Canakkale, more than a century ago. The reality of the Trojan War has been equally contentious, although Homer’s account fits the topography around Hissarlik remarkably well, and it seems likely that the Iliad does indeed reflect a conflict around 1180BC, towards the end of the Aegean Bronze Age.

For a long time Homer was doubted, because his description of Achilles chasing Hector around the walls did not fit well with the small site that can be seen at Hissarlik today. Excavations by the late Manfred Korfmann showed that this Troy was just the citadel and that a much larger lower town lay south of it enclosed by a rock-cut ditch (The Times, February 25, 2002).

Professor Pernicka’s continuation of Korfmann’s work has confirmed the substantial nature of this defensive work, which was probably backed by a now-vanished rampart. He has traced it for 1.4 kilometres, and showed it to be 4 metres wide and 2 metres deep.

The length of the defences may be as much as 2.5 kilometres. “This year we established that the trench continues around the town. We’ve found a southern gate, a southeastern gate, traces of a southwestern gate and I expect to find an eastern gate. So we have evidence of town planning,” he said, noting that the new evidence refutedKorfmann’s critics, who claimed that the trench was for drainage and did not indicate any substantial defences.

The Times

Normand Hammond, Archaeology Correspondent

September 19, 2008

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September 20, 2008