Clock tower

A clock tower is a tower built with one or more (often four) clock faces.The clock tower is usually part of a church or municipal building such as a town hall, but many clock towers are free-standing.

The mechanism inside the tower is known as a turret clock. It often marks the hour (and sometimes segments of an hour) by sounding large bells or chimes, sometimes playing simple musical phrases or tunes.

Although clock towers are today mostly admired for their aesthetics, they once served an important purpose. Before the middle of the twentieth century, most people did not have watches; clock towers were therefore placed near the centers of towns and were often the tallest structures there. The use of clock towers in the West date back to the ancient Roman period, while other civilizations such as medieval China also featured clock towers (see Su Song).

Some clock towers are famous landmarks. Three of the best-known are the clock tower which houses Big Ben (often itself colloquially referred to as Big Ben) of the Palace of Westminster in London, the Rajabai Tower in Mumbai, and the Spasskaya Tower of the Moscow Kremlin.

On New Year's Eve 2004 four 6.3-metre clock faces were added to the top of the Warsaw Palace of Culture and Science building in Warsaw, Poland making it the highest 4-faced clock tower in the world and the second highest clock tower in the world.^[1]. The NTT DoCoMo Yoyogi Building 240 meters (787 feet) is 10 meters higher and is the highest clock tower in the world. The Allen-Bradley Clock Tower holds the record for largest non-chiming four faced clock. The chimes were intentionally left out so that the Big Ben tower would still have that record.

Warsaw Palace of Culture and Science, the second highest clock clock tower	The Clock Tower Building of The Chinese High School, a national monument of Singapore	Einsiedeln Abbey	McGraw Tower at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York
Palace of Westminster, London, England	The Rajabai Tower, South Mumbai, India	The Spasskaya Tower, Moscow	The Clock Tower at Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong was part of the former Kowloon Station
Peace Tower, Parliament Hill Ottawa, Ontario	Saint Nicolas church, Kozani, Greece	Malay College Kuala Kangsar, Malaysia	Central Terminal, Sydney, Australia
The old Star Ferry pier in Central, Hong Kong	Joseph Chamberlain Memorial Clock Tower, The University of Birmingham, England	Clock tower of the Mississauga City Hall in Mississauga, Ontario	Allen-Bradley Division Rockwell Automation Clock Tower in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
City Hall, Minneapolis, Minnesota	Sather Tower, University of California, Berkeley	Memorial Tower, Louisiana State University

See also

• Bell tower
• Campanile
• Minaret

References

1. ^ History of PKiN in a nutshell.

id:Menara jam nl:Klokkentoren ja:時計台 ru:Колокольня zh:钟楼

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