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Published: 13 November 2024

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It isn't often that a sundial face is created before the gnomon is attached.  In Shelbyville IN a large, circular art piece in the form of a sundial, was created at the Blue River Trailhead early in 2024.  If they had chosen an analemmatic sundial, a walker of the trail could have simply stood on the appropriate date and used his or her own shadow to tell the local solar time.  But Shelbyville residents have a more ambitious plan.  The artistically paintedd design is a typical horizontal sundial, requiring a real slanted gnomon. In a news article by Jeff Brown in The Shelby County Post for Nov 12, 2024, "The Blue River Community Foundation received approval Tuesday morning from the Board of Works and Public Safety to purchase and install a gnomon that will turn the art piece at the Blue River Trailhead just north of downtown Shelbyville into a functioning sundial." According to the article, the completion of the sundial will be paid for by grants and private donations.

Photo from The Shelby County Post with a "birds eye view" insert of the sundial layout.  The gnomon will cross half or more of the path.

Read the Jeff Brown's article at: ShelbyCountyPost

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Published: 04 November 2024

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For two years News Atlas (https://newatlas.com/architecture/) has reported on the progress of the construction of the Sun Tower in Yantai, China.  The 164-foot (50m) curved conical tower was designed by OPEN Architecture symbolized the watch towers of the Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644 CE) that looked out over the coastline to warn of impending attack from the sea.

Adam Williams in the Nov. 4, 2024 issue of News Atlas provides another "infomercial" on the Sun Tower completed and opened in November on schedule:. 

"Informed by meticulous studies of the Sun, the northern edge of the building is parallel to the noon sunlight of the equinoxes, while the entrance tunnel aligns with the sunset during the Winter Solstice," explains OPEN Architecture. "Sitting at the center of the Sun Tower is a semi-outdoor theater, which has been orientated with its central axis pointing towards the sunrise over Zhifu Island on Summer Solstice."

"Facing the ocean, the concave inner shell absorbs the sounds of the ocean, amplifying back through the structure, and down to the amphitheater at the base. Radiating from the center of the Plaza is a series of elliptical rings, resembling planetary orbits. A water channel is carved into the stone pavement. The intersections between the rings and the water channel mark the building shadow at specific hours during the equinoxes, and one outer ring features a series of fountains that celebrate the 24 solar terms of the traditional Chinese calendar."

This is an impressive structure.

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Published: 10 October 2024

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The Canadian Royal Mint will release a fully functioning sundial coin expected to ship on 12 December, 2024.  The obverse is a profile of His Majesty, Charles III (designed by Steve Rosati) and the reverse is a full 3-dimensional sundial (designed by Anna Bucciarelli).  With a highly decorated dial face and gnomon, the dial is designed for 45° N latitude, telling time from 6am to 6pm.

The first minting of 5,000 coins is already subscribed, and we hope there will be a second minting.  The coin is 99.99% pure silver with a gnomon "styled to complement the coin base's ornate design" made of rhodium-plated brass   The coin is 38mm in diameter, weighing 31.30 g.

From the Canadian Royal Mint website: "This sundial is appropriate for mid-northern latitudes. To use your coin as a sundial, place it on a flat surface in direct sunlight and with the gnomon pointing north. Take note of where the shadow’s outer edge lines up, and that should indicate the approximate local solar time. (Like any sundial, some additional adjustments may be required due to longitude and the time of year.)" We assume of course that these adjustments are mathematical!  Longitude adjustment is made with reference to your local time zone. For example Calgary at 114° W is in the Mountain Standard Time Zone of 105° W.  That is, Calgary is 9° further west of the time zone meridian.  Each degree is 4 minutes of time so the sundial shadow West of the time zone is 9 x 4 =36 minutes "early".  (East of the time zone is "late").  If the clock says noon, the Calgary sundial shadow will show approximately 11:24 am (with an additional correction due to the sun's time excursion of +/- 15 min. called the Equation of Time).

Read more about the sundial coin at: https://www.mint.ca/en/shop/coins/2024/fine-silver-coin-the-sundial

And visit their webpage  https://www.mint.ca/en/blog/2024-10-six-canadian-sundials-to-discover highlighting six Canadian sundials - a different type of sundial for each of Canada's six time zones.

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Published: 24 March 2024

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When is a watch not a watch? When it unfolds into an equatorial sundial.  The watch, designed by Yu Ishihara is called a "Watch Exclusively for Sunny Men" and was part of a contest sponsored by Seiko to "help reimagine what a watch can be", aimed at creativity and perhaps for eventual production. Read about it at https://www.seiko-design.com/powerdesignproject2024/en/sunnyman.html#modaal-box

The image at right was selected from a number of images of the Seiko "Sunny Men" watch to show the fall-winter-spring face rather than the common view of the spring-summer-fall face.  On either side is a longitude adjustment and as can be seen there is a bubble level for alignment.

No price was quoted.  It is a one of kind timepiece (at least for the present).  Watches of this class typically sell for $27,000.

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Published: 14 July 2023

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A sundial or performance center or solar generator? It's all three. Called the Arco del Tiempo (Arch of Time), the design by Berlin architect Riccardo Mariano provides the projection of the sun's rays onto the ground through tinted glass apertures spanning the length of its arching ceiling. The elliptical shaped spots change every hour, telling "the solar time each day and delight visitors with a slowly evolving spectacle that bridges the terrestial and the celestion," said Land Art Generator, who commissioned the structure.  Mariano designed the arch as a pavillion with a photovoltaic skin to store energy for night-time illumination (equivalent to powering 40 average homes). During the day, it is billed as the "world's largest sundial". According to Ellen Eberhardt of DeZeen on-line magazine, "A combination of trichord truss arches, rub trusses, and purlins will support the tilted steel structure, which will be clad in a layer of galvanized metal decking and covered with custom-fabricated photovoltaic modules."

Eberhardt explains that,"The Arch of Time will serve as a "gateway" to Houston's Second Ward neighbourhood and will connect Guadalupe Plaza Park to Buffalo Bayou Park as a part of the city's ongoing initiative to provide greater access to greenspace and mitigate flooding through the design of urban parks."

The images are courtesy of Land Art Generator Initiative.

Read more at: https://www.dezeen.com/2023/07/13/worlds-largest-sundial-houston-riccardo-mariano-land-art-generator-initiative/

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Published: 01 July 2023

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According to NewAtlas.com (https://newatlas.com/architecture/sun-tower-open/), construction of the Sun Tower exhibition building and outdoor theater is underway in the Chinese city of Yantai. The tower is being constructed by a French firm, Ducks Sceno and the engineering firm Arup, raising to 50m (164 ft) gracefully into the sky.  The tower symbolizes the historic watch towers of the Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644 CE). Yantai literally means "Beacon Tower", named for the watch towers that look out over the coastline to warn of impending attack from the sea.

Update from NewAtlas: "Structurally, the building is made up of white concrete, which has been carefully shaped to respond to the Sun's trajectory. Round holes on its exterior are connected to a series of tubes, which channel natural light into the interior during the daytime. At night, its windows will be illuminated in a way designed to look like a starry sky. In addition to the building itself, its landscaping is very complex and will respond to the Northern Hemisphere's Spring and Fall equinox....The Sun Tower's basic structure is now complete – indeed, with excellent timing, OPEN [architects] actually carried out the topping out ceremony during the Northern Hemisphere's recent Summer Solstice. Work is ongoing to finish it off and it's expected to open to the public sometime in 2024.."

Read more at: https://newatlas.com/architecture/open-sun-tower-nears-completion/ and http://www.openarch.com/task/567

Adam Williams, author the the Sun Tower article of 16 Feb 2022 notes: "The concave form of the building will amplify sounds from the sea... Additionally, its shape has been created following careful studies of the sunlight during the times of the equinox in both the spring and fall. The main body of the tower will work with a plaza surrounding the building to track each equinox, a little like the Shanghai Astronomy Museum, by Ennead Architects. A water channel will cut across the plaza – a ruler of time – this is the straight line that the shadow of the Sun Tower will follow on the day of the equinox. A series of elliptical rings are set in the pavement pattern [with] the intersections between the rings and the water channel marking the building shadow's footprint at specific hours on the equinox day. At one of the outer rings, a series of fountains were designed to celebrate the 24 Solar Terms of the Traditional Chinese Calendar; on normal days they are synced with high and low tides."

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Published: 25 June 2023

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Julie Baumgardner in The Art Newspaper of Jan 13, 2023 reports on the construction project of Point of Infinity, a nearly 70 foot (21m) hyperbolic cone will reach toward the sky as part of a 50 million dollar park development on Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island.

In a competition held by the San Francisco Arts Commision on behalf of the Treasure Island Development Authority, Hiroshi Sugimoto's design won over 500 other submissions with a hyperbolic cone stretching upwards into a needle. "Point of Infinity is not an arbitrary title—the work is based on the mathematical formula for infinity. According to the artist's project proposal, the starting point was not to ‘make’ a sculptural shape but to ask myself what should be ‘given’ to this very specific place'. [Hiroshi] set out to explore the limits of human memory and invention, conceiving 'a hyperbolic curve that would suggest both infinity and eternity: two converging curved lines, getting closer and closer but never meeting."

The sculpture also serves as a meridian seasonal marker, "[evoking] the Tower of the Sun, the centrepiece of the 1939 World's Fair in San Francisco, for which Treasure Island was originally constructed. A large stone will be etched with the position of the sun’s shadow on the vernal and autumnal equinoxes at noon. 'The creation of the pyramids is shrouded in mystery. By contrast, this tower will act as a symbol expressing humanity’s yearning for the infinite even 50 centuries in the future,' the artist writes. "

Read more at: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/01/13/san-francisco-public-sculpture-hiroshi-sugimoto

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Published: 30 March 2023

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In the Swiss mountains near the resort of Zermatt just beneath the Matternhorn, Stir World reports that "famed luxury Swiss watchmaker Hublot announced Daniel Arsham as its new ambassador, with a compelling piece of temporary land art. Aptly titled "Light & Time", the work is a Hublot-inspired 20-metre sundial resting in the shadows of the Matterhorn mountain."

This sculptural is billed as an ephemeral horological installation "to merge the roots of timekeeping with the craftsmanship in land art." The central gnomon oblisk is surrounded by 6 symmetric markers of ice. However, to call it a sundial is going a bit too far. Yes, the tip of the gnomon shadow could be capable of telling time if hour marks were created and drawn correctly. Instead, there are size large ice cubes. There's a lot of hyperbolae in the description of this installation, such as Daniel Arsham's own statement: "Physically, the temporary installation will capture something of how fleeting time can feel, but it will also be lasting, creating a memory that transcends the passing of the seconds, minutes, hours and days in all those who make the journey up the mountain to see it." Perhaps more humbly, "When you see the installation, it’s made of ice and snow. Not only is it this thing that tells time and captures time, but it will also disappear and be erased by it."

Photo at right: courtesy of Hublot.

Read more, see more photos, and watch several videos at: https://www.stirworld.com/see-features-light-time-by-daniel-arsham-is-a-horological-land-art-made-of-ice-and-snow