Transcend clock tower

Concept (Inspired from)…

     Alexandria, Al-Anfoushy District, what a marvelous area to build a clock tower that connects past and present together with a glans to the future!

     The main concept of the project has been chosen to link the Ancient Egyptian and the Roman civilization together while considering the harmony between past, present, and future. Where the first idea that came to our mind was to make the clock digital, with icons for the weather forecast, date & location of the city in the which the clock is placed a very simple glimpse into the future of trying to cope with the trending new clocks & watches. 

     The chosen place to build the clock tower was called in the old days (in the time of the Ancient Egyptians) the island of Pharos, and from here the ideas began in succession, as our first idea was completely linked to the Ancient Egyptian symbols, so what came to our mind first was the obelisk. Pyramid as a souvenir of sun worship. The pyramidal surface of each obelisk was gilded or plated with a mixture of gold and silver so that this layer of sacred metal would reflect the sun's rays over the time when the sun's rays fell on it. On the day of the summer solstice, the disk of the sun appears perpendicular to the obelisks, and obelisks appear in the form of luminous stone candles.

Up to the mark…

     To support the idea presented, we decided to combine the obelisk with two other symbols of the ancient Egyptian, the key to life (ankh) and the masculine sun. Ankh is an ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol that was used in writing and art to express life. The ancient Egyptians considered it a symbol of life. Recently, the ankh has become a popular symbol in modern western culture, and to get out of the explicit symbolic form we decided to combine the winged sun with the key to life as the winged sun was a symbol of the sun god “Ra”, and the winged sun represented the ultimate strength and power of the sun god. 

     Upon completion of the merging phase and arriving to the final stage, we found that it was not enough, so we decided to introduce another symbol of the Ancient Egyptian-Roman symbols, which is the symbol of Hathor. Hathor is the daughter of the sun god “Ra” and the goddess of heaven, love, beauty, money, happiness, music, and fertility. It was characterized as two horns, in-between them a circle symbolizing the solar disk. In the Roman era, Hathor was the goddess of love, beauty and was known as Venus by the Romans. 

Sundial (Flat Plate & Gnomon)…

     From here, the ideas began in succession for how to link all of these symbols to the Roman era, and we found that the most appropriate idea is the Roman numerals, as it is very easy to combine the Roman numerals with the clock tower, so we used the sundial (the gnomon), which is the oldest device by which we can tell the time, it was invented by the Romans, Where the time is indicated by the shadow of the body exposed to sunlight, and to make the clock easier to use, a piece called a gnomon was attached to it, where it casts its shadow on the dial of the clock. To be an unconventional idea, we put the clock dial as a prominent inscription on the ground surrounding the base of the clock tower and replaced (gnomon) with the tower itself to represent the piece that will reflect its shadow on the ground.

Materials (Charming Ancient Egyptian Colors)…

     To reach the final idea presented, we considered the relations between the adjacent buildings and the clock tower, as we must respect the culture of the AL-Anfoushy area, the nature of the place and the materials used for construction, and with a visit to the Al-Anfoushy area, we found that the place contains ancient heritage buildings, including the Qaitbay Castle, which is distinguished by its ancient appearance. 

     To preserve this, it was applied to the clock tower so that the base would be built of refractory bricks simulating the Qaitbay Citadel, and the clock tower was completely isolated from water, to preserve glimpses of the past, present and integrate them with the future, the material of golden chrome and silver brass was used. These are materials that have a very high ability to reflect sunlight and not absorb it to maintain a suitable temperature for the clock tower body.

Eventually…

     How will the project transform over time? This is what must be taken into consideration. For this reason, we thought that the clock tower should display local, world time in addition to the weather forecast with symbols to make it easier for everyone to know the weather, and finally, we can develop the clock tower in order to Keep pace with all the new development in terms of building materials.