Tower clock by Zimmermann Erich, 1936

Record summary

Held and catalogued by Architekturmuseum der Technischen Universität Berlin (object number 59999), this is a tower clock by Zimmermann Erich, dated 1936. The Atlas places it in the Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking period (1900 – 1945) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: Lichtpause auf Papier. Recorded dimensions: Blattmaß: 63,6 x 95 cm. The record is illustrated with 1 photograph.

Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.

Catalogue description

Atlas type guide

Turret, tower and public clocks

The first mechanical clocks of the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were large iron striking clocks in towers, monasteries and cathedrals, driven by falling weights and controlled by a verge escapement with a foliot or wheel balance. They struck a bell rather than displaying the time, and only gradually acquired dials. Public clocks ordered civic life, regulating markets, work and worship.

From the seventeenth century the pendulum and then the anchor and pinwheel escapements made turret clocks far more accurate. In the nineteenth century firms such as Dent, Smith of Derby, Gillett & Johnston, J. F. Weule and Collin made cast-iron flatbed movements, and Edmund Beckett Denison's gravity escapement for the Great Clock of Westminster (1859) became the standard for accurate tower clocks.

General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.

Read next:Verge escapementFoliotAnchor (recoil) escapement