Two more versions on the theme of time. A clock can do so much to call attention to a building and have it command public space, as well as lend it significance and suggest meanings.

I like the ideas in the previous version but its design is rough and needs work—I haven’t decided how yet. These present orderly buildings, closer to our common connotations of time. The risk is regimentation, which I try to offset with accents, the standing mass of the clocked brick columns, some asymmetry, and the deep, expressive indentation of the windows.

This indentation presents a challenge at the corners. That space can be filled in with columns or the intersection could be an open “L.” Or the horizontal beams can be extended at each level, creating a figure of intersection, as I have done in the first version.

Or the brick columns can be moved to the corners and cover that space.

Rear view. The brick columns lie within the grid but the clock is offset, slightly up and to the side.

Rear corner.

Side. Here and on the front the clock is placed to the left of the column, again just outside the gird. The clock asserts both its relationship to the rest of the building but also its independence. Placing the brick column within the rectangle of the building creates an implied pyramid that breaks the monotony of the grid and gives the side and front the energy and strength of that pyramid, with the clock at the apex.

Front corner. The corner treatment, which I repeated at the cornice, suggests an open lattice, with all its implications, one that might extend beyond the building, infinitely.

Front, with the main entrance offset.

From above.

Rear of IIa. This version is closed and presents a greater mass of brick on the exterior.

Rear corner.

Side. Much of the dynamism of the other version is lost, but the side is still strong and stable. The clock looks to the opposite corner, suggesting a diagonal that holds the design together.

Front corner.

Front. And here the clock looks both to the entrance and bottom corner.

Background and Previous Designs

Other designs for this project, along with background material and more photographs of site, can be found here and at these posts.