Big Ben
"The sweeping view of the Docklands,
the City's cluster of towers, the dome of St Paul's and,
upriver around a curve in the Thames, the pinnacles of
the Houses of Parliament and the tower of
Big Ben, all of them at dawn `standing clean and stripped,
like a boxer entering a ring, for another twenty-four rounds
with Fate. [1]."
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"When H.V.Morton's words were first published in 1926,
in The Nights of London,
although he described the dawn
scene as beautiful, the capital was not in good shape.
During the horrific First World War of 1914-18, It had
suffered bombs and food shortages, and in the aftermath there
were docks lying idle, high unemployment and a chronic need
for housing. Its sorry state was compounded by the Second
World War of 1939-45, which
brought devastation to London.
The Blitz demolished a third of the City, many docks
and the House of Commons. Big Ben survived,
though, and the chimes helped to keep British spirits
up. [2]. "
"The inadequacies of the old Palace of Westminster were
recognized as early as the 1820s. A new building might have
been proposed there and then, but ministers baulked at the cost
of such scheme so soon after the Napoleonic Wars. It
took a calamity to spring them into action.
On 16 October 1834, the Clerk of Works, a Mr Richard
Wibley, was asked to destroy several bundles of old tally sticks
in a cellar furnace. The fire raged out of control, and the
whole palace was soon engulfed in flames. The Times newspaper
wrote jocularly the following day that the 'motion for a new
House is carried without a division'.
Augustus Pugin had been an eyewitness to the 1834 fire
and revelled in every minute of it. He hated classical architecture
and neoclassical architects and was only too happy to see their
various improvements to the old parliament go up in smoke.
'There is nothing much to regret and much to rejoice in a vast
quantity of Soane's mixtures and Wyatt's heresies effectually
consigned to oblivion, ' he wrote. 'Oh what a glorious sight
to see his composition mullions and cement pinnacles and battlements
flying and cracking…' Fearing that a neoclassical architect
would be asked to design the new parliament, Pugin put
his name forward and, although he was only 24 at the time, was
named assistant to the older, more experienced Charles Barry.
Theirs was a near perfect partnership, Barry sketched
out the broad lines of the design, while Pugin attended
to the details of ornamentation. Some of Pugin's work
was lost in the bombing of the Second World War; you can nevertheless
admire the sheer fervour of his imagination in the sculpted
wood and stone, the stained glass, tiled floors, wallpaper and
painted ceilings that abound along every corridor and in every
room.
Despite Pugin's rantings against the classicists, he
was happy to go along with Barry's essentially classical
design and Gothicize it to his heart's content. The Palace
of Westminster's blend of architectural restraint (Barry)
and decorative frenzy (Pugin) is one of its most appealing aspects.
Pugin went mad and died in 1852, and so never lived to
work on the most famous feature of the new building, the clock
tower at the eastern end known universally by the name of
its giant bell, Big Ben. Nowadays the clock is renowned
for its accuracy and its resounding tolling of the hour, but
the story of its construction is one of incredible incompetence
and bungling.
The 320ft high clock tower was finished in 1854, but
because of a bitter disagreement between the two clockmakers,
Frederick Dent and Edmund Beckett Denison, there
was nothing to put inside it for another three years. Finally
a great bell made up according to Denison's instruction
was dragged across Westminster Bridge by a cart and 16
horses. But, as it was being laid out ready for hoisting into
position, a 4ft crack suddenly appeared, and the bell had to
be abandoned. Similar embarrassments ensued over the next two
years, until a functioning, but still cracked bell was at last
erected at the top of the tower. It remains defective to this
day.
Why the name Big Ben? The most common explanation is
that the bell was named after Sir Benjamin Hall, the
unpopular Chief Commissioner of Works who had to explain
all the cock ups in his project to an unimpressed House of
Commons.
Another theory has it that Big Ben was in fact Benjamin
Caunt, a corpulent boxer who owned a pub a couple of hundred
yards away in St Martin's Lane. The chimes, which are
well known around the world because they are broadcast by the
BBC World Service.
After such an inauspicious beginning, the Clock has had a remarkably
uneventful history, only seriously going wrong during the Second
World War, when the belfry stage of the tower was damaged and
the Clock face shattered by bombing. Once, in 1949, the hands
stopped turning under the weight of a flock of starlings. Since
then, apart from a dry bearing which stopped the Big Ben twice
in 1997, Big Ben has proved unfailingly accurate. [3]. "
References
[1], [2] Louise. Nicholson, LONDON. London: Frances Lincoln Limited, 1998.
[3] Andrew. Gumbel, London. London: Cadogan Books plc, 1998.
Amazon eBay: 1. Big Ben is located in the Palace of Westminster in London, in Great
Britain.
2. The name Big Ben refers to the bell, but it is also used to refer to the
clock and the bell tower as well.
3. The tower is about 316 feet tall, about 16 stories. The original bell
weighed 16 tons. The current bell weighs about 13.5 tons (13.7 to be
exact). The clock faces are set in a 23-foot diameter frame.
4. Currently, only residents of the United Kingdom may visit the clock
tower.
5. The Houses of Parliament shares a building (the Palace of
Westminster) with Big Ben.
6. Augustus Pugin designed the clock tower, which was built after a
1834 fire destroyed the palace. Big Ben the bell rang for the first time
in 1859.
7. Possible interesting facts (accept all true stories) about this landmark
include:
Big Ben is the most famous symbol of London.
According to a survey, it is the best-loved building in London.
The Palace of Westminster was damaged by bombs during World
War II, but the bell continued ringing and the clock never stopped.
The first bell cracked beyond repair while being tested. The second
bell also cracked, but it is still used despite the crack.
The lights in the clock tower were turned off in WWI to avoid guiding
Zeppelin attacks, and in WWII to avoid guiding enemy bombers.
SINGAPORE When Christopher Long, a brand manager working for a
watch distributor, met Alvin Lye, a former executive
who had quit a job with Sony to open a vintage watch
store, the encounter blossomed into a shared adventure.
In 2003, the two Singaporeans combined their engineering
and business knowledge to found Azimuth, a maker of innovative
design watches.
Mr. Long, now 32, began collecting watches 15 years ago. It was
that passion that led him to Mr. Lye’s shop.
When the pair set up Azimuth, they started by buying 200 vintage
movements from a Swiss supplier selling stock from closed factories.
With these they built their first model, the Bombardier I, a
design inspired by a generic German Air Force watch dating from
the 1940s, the B-Uhr, with a large onion crown, an oversized dial
with bold Arabic numerals and riveted calf-leather strap.
But their ambition was to make something different: funky, avant-
garde designs providing alternative ways of telling time.
‘‘The designs are more machine-inspired — with portholes
where different apertures tell you different times,’’ Mr. Long said.
‘‘We’re trying to emulate this kind of field in the world of watch
making, so you’re wearing more than just a watch, it also has a gadget
feel.’’
Azimuth now works with a mix of modern ébauches, or half-finished
blank movements, and assembled movements from Swiss
watch makers which it modifies to its own designs. Made in Biel-Bienne
in Switzerland, the watches, which incorporate such complications
as split-second chronographs, retrograde counters, calendar
functions and jumping hours, are distributed internationally and
have attracted some attention from collectors. The company manufactures
about 1,500 pieces a year.
Last year, it unveiled ‘‘Mr. Roboto,’’ a watch inspired by a 1950s tin
toy, the Lantern Robot. On the watch face, the left eye shows the
hour; the right eye is set to Greenwich Mean Time; the nose shows
seconds and the mouth area a retrograde minute display.
This year, it is showing its new Twin Barrel Tourbillon at Basel-
World, a model which Mr. Long hopes will become emblematic of
Azimuth’s ambition to ‘‘create complicated watches in avant-garde
design.’’
‘‘I was looking at a car magazine with a supercar on the front cover,
and at that moment I could almost imagine a watch coming out,’’
he said. ‘‘The T.B.T. is the very first watch designed to replicate the
curves of the supercar faithfully. It’s almost like strapping a car on
your wrist.’’
The ultra-lightweight, aerodynamic case, is adorned with plates
of carbon fiber fitted into recesses in its sides and back. Under a
sapphire crystal domed ‘‘cockpit’’ a massive tourbillon mechanism,
with a high beat 28,800 vibrations per hour, five-day power reserve,
is revealed at the 6 o’clock position. The time is told by reading twin
rotary discs suspended by a massive central titaniumarm. Even and
odd hours are divided on hexagonal discs, while the minutes are
displayed in an arc at the edge of the dial from the traditional 3
o’clock position to the 9 o’clock position.
Azimuth is planning a limited edition of only 25 pieces, to retail
for 120,000 Singapore dollars, or $77,500, taking the brand sharply
up market from its typical 5,000 dollar price point.
Mr. Long said: ‘‘Azimuth designs will continue to be headed in
this direction.
‘‘Avant-garde designs, unconventional ways of telling time, are
definitely not for every man, but customers looking for interesting
timepieces, or I should say weird-looking watches, come to us, and
certainly we believe we have built a reputation around that.’’
AT AZIMUTH, 2 SINGAPOREANS FORGE A PARTNERSHIP THAT
PRODUCES INTRICATE, AVANT-GARDE MECHANISMS
Azimuth
By Alice Pfeiffer
LONDON Dent of London is a name that may not ring a bell among
watch collectors—but the British company rings some of
the world’s most famous chimes, and has been doing so
for more than 150 years. In 1852, a year before his death, the
company’s founder, Edward J. Dent, won the order to build the
Great Clock of the Houses of Parliament, better known as Big Ben.
Among other historical pieces, the company established by Mr.
Dent made the chronometer carried by Charles Darwin’s ship,
H.M.S. Beagle, on the 1831 voyage to the Galápagos Islands that led
to his revolutionary work, ‘‘The Origin of Species’’; and the Standard
Clock at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, built in 1871 as the
reference point for Greenwich Mean Time.
This year, it completed restoration and installation of the station
platform clock at St. Pancras, the Eurostar train’s new London terminal
— the original was destroyed in the 1970s.
Now, it has branched into a smaller line of business, making luxury
wristwatches; but only after a major makeover of its own.
Established in 1814, the company originally focused on precision
chronometers for the Royal Navy’s navigation. From its earliest
days it also dealt with royal commissions on a regular basis, providing
clocks to Queen Victoria, several czars, Spanish royalty and
many other crowned or otherwise distinguished patrons. In 1843,
Dent built the standard astronomical clock for the National Observatory
of Switzerland in Geneva. Dent was ‘‘a British clock that ran
Swiss time,’’ said Iain Hutchinson, the
company’s president since 2003.
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