Public clocks in Vienna
For centuries, the public clocks in Vienna have been used to provide time orientation in the public space of the Austrian capital, Vienna . The majority of the 198 clocks managed by the City of Vienna are cube clocks or church tower clocks .
history
Following the trend in other European cities, the first public clock in Vienna was installed in the south tower of St. Stephen's Cathedral in 1415 . Up until the 18th century there were mainly church tower clocks, most of which were only equipped with an hour hand. In the course of the 19th century clocks were added to other buildings such as government offices, and as a result of the increased need to know the exact time, today's standard with hour and minute hands was established. In 1862 clocks were built into the two round windows on the side of the giant gate of St. Stephen's Cathedral . While the clock on the left had a traditional dial and hands, the clock on the right was given a jumping number mechanism for hour and five-minute jumps, which was replaced in 1909 by one with a minute jump.
From 1864 onwards, based on a resolution by the Vienna City Council, numerous improvements were made, including all of the suburbs that were incorporated into the city received at least one public clock each. In addition, the dial of some church clocks has been replaced by a transparent one that can be illuminated from the back, which means that the time can now also be read at night. A new type was added to the various facade clocks in 1865: the column or column clocks designed as part of the city furniture . The first column clock was put into operation on a trial basis at Am Hof in September 1865 and installed around two months later in front of the Carltheater on Praterstrasse.
In 1877, the world's first public clock with pneumatic drive was ceremoniously put into operation on Schottenring . It was mounted on a guard post and (like the column clock from 1865) had three dials. Two more clocks of this type were set up in Herrengasse and Wipplingerstraße. When after a while the clocks proved to be too imprecise, other methods of driving the clockwork were looked for. The decision was made in favor of an autodynamic system with aneroid cans developed by Friedrich von Lössl , which used the daily fluctuations in air pressure and temperature to wind up the movement's springs . A first stand clock with this drive and four dials was installed in the Türkenschanzpark in 1880 , more followed in 1881 in the Stadtpark , in 1883 in the Prater and by the beginning of the 20th century at least four other clocks at various locations in Vienna.
In August 1883 the first Viennese weather house was built in the city park, equipped with a "world clock". A clock showed the current time in Vienna, a special clockwork the time of sunrise and sunset and several smaller clocks the time in various other cities such as Paris, London and Istanbul. Later, for example , weather houses equipped with clocks were set up in the Rathauspark , Türkenschanzpark and Schweizergarten .
After the electrification of the Viennese tram in 1897 and the street lighting in 1902, the first electrically operated public clock in Vienna was unveiled in October 1906, which crowns the Arthaber fountain in the Favoritner Arthaberpark . In 1907 a prototype of the Viennese cube clock was set up at the Opernring at the intersection of Kärntner Strasse . The electrically operated clock with four illuminated dials, each one meter in diameter, was manufactured by the watchmaker Ing. Schauer and was attached to an arc lamp mast. In the years that followed, other clocks of this type were set up in which the dials were already enclosed in a cube-shaped case with beveled corners. In 1931 there were already 32 cube clocks in Vienna.
In 1955, the first clock on the stand with a leaf display was installed on Josefstädter Strasse . Other clocks of this type of display followed in the Schottentor ( Jonas-Reindl ) and Hietzing traffic stations , where they were attached to the ceiling of the station structures. Liquid crystal displays later replaced the fall leaf displays. After the central control of the public clocks had already been implemented via the fire brigade's reporting line in 1948, a cube clock on Heumarkt was controlled by radio for the first time in 1971. The conversion of the controls of all cube clocks to radio operation via GPS signal began in 2002.
Currently (as of 2017) the municipal department 33 of the municipality of Vienna (MA 33, Wien Leuchtet ) looks after a total of 198 public clocks. The almost 5000 clocks in stations, vehicles and operating systems of public transport are looked after by Wiener Linien and the Austrian Federal Railways .
variants
Building clocks
29 clocks are part of the building facade of mostly public buildings. These include ten office buildings, seven schools and twelve other buildings, including community buildings , the Amalienbad and the forward building .
Church clocks
The 84 churches with clocks managed by the City of Vienna are located in all 23 districts of Vienna, mostly in the outskirts. In the inner city only the clocks of the Schottenkirche and Michaelerkirche as well as the dial lighting of the Peterskirche are looked after.
Cube clocks
With the exception of Neubau and Hernals, the 74 cube clocks are in all of Vienna's districts. The last new installations took place in 2015 in the urban development areas of Nordbahnviertel and Seestadt Aspern .
Artwork and digital clocks
The eleven works of art and digital clocks include the clock tower art installation in Kurpark Oberlaa and a clock with a base designed by Wander Bertoni on a green area at the main fire station in Favoriten . Digital clocks are located outside the Schottentor and Hietzing traffic stations, at the Dommayergasse tram stop in Hietzing and as a world clock in a weather station in the Oberlaa spa park.
Time change
The annual changeover from normal to summer time in spring and the change back to normal time in autumn are carried out automatically by MA 33. The building and church tower clocks receive a corresponding DCF77 radio signal , the cube clocks use the time information supplied via the GPS signal. In spring, the minute hand jumps from 1:59 to 2:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m., in autumn the clocks are stopped for one hour before the jump from 2:59 a.m. to 3:00 a.m., after which it jumps to 3 : 00 o'clock. Since there are occasional problems with the changeover, the employees of MA 33 check the correct display of the clocks that same night.
Picture gallery
Spring clock at St. Stephen's Cathedral
Forward building
Amalienbad
Michaelerkirche
Artwork clock in Baumgasse
Art clock in the Kurpark Oberlaa
Individual evidence
- ↑ Summer time: 5,000 public clocks changed to wien.orf.at from March 30, 2013
- ↑ Time change for public clocks on wien.gv.at ( Memento from April 1, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
literature
- Peter Payer : The synchronized city. Public clocks and time perception, Vienna 1850 until today. Holzhausen Verlag, Vienna 2015, ISBN 3-902868-53-8 . ( online )
