New clocks will soon be making an appearance on the Rotunda as part of the University’s second phase of restoring the World Heritage Site.
In the next two weeks, the new clocks will be installed on the north and south porticos of the Rotunda, said Mark Kutney, architectural conservator for Office of the Architect.
“For the most part, the dials will look fresh,” Kutney said. “There was a lot of white paint that had gotten chalky and gotten onto the black dial[s].”
The updated clocks, designed to emulate models in the 1890s, will have black dials and gilded numerals.
“Nobody that is alive today would have seen the gilded numerals and black dial,” Kutney said. “It’s going to be new to everybody.”
The Rotunda clocks have seen two main phases. When the Rotunda was originally built in the 1820s, Thomas Jefferson ordered a clock for the south portico from Simon Willard, a prominent clockmaker at the time. It faced the Lawn until it was destroyed in the 1895 Rotunda fire. Following the fire, new clocks were installed on the north and south porticos.
Brian Hogg, senior preservation planner at the Office of the Architect, said the clocks on the Rotunda serve an integral purpose both in the past and present history of the University.
“A clock has been part of the Rotunda’s appearance and its role in the daily life of the University since the University began,” Hogg said in an email. “We want to retain those attributes in the future.”
The technology behind the clock will also resemble historic methods of operating the dials. Previously, the clocks were operated by an electric motor connected to a master clock which sent out signals once per minute. However, the system was inaccurate and wore out the clocks because they were constantly running, Kutney said.
The newly-installed clocks will also be impulse-driven, but they will have automatic seasonal time changes and other time-resetting features controlled by digital technology.
“It’s elegant in that we are maintaining the early appearance, an aspect of the early technology, but we are bringing it up to date in terms of its accuracy and its timekeeping,” Kutney said.
Overall, Rotunda renovations are still on schedule to be completed in July 2016, said Jody Lahendro, supervisory historic preservation architect with Facilities Management, in an email statement.
“If the current schedule can be maintained over the winter, it is expected that construction fencing and scaffolding on the Rotunda facades will be removed prior to Final Exercises,” Lahendro said.
Following the clock installation, the new marble capitals will be revealed for the first time since their installation.
“Once the clocks are repaired over the next week or two, scaffolding will be removed from the face of the porticos exposing the new marble capitals, carved in Carrara, Italy, for the first time,” she said.
There is a push to complete major exterior work, such as painting and terracing paving, before winter weather sets in, Lahendro said.
Emily McDuff, vice-chair of the University Guides and fourth-year Engineering student, said University Guides have adjusted their tours to be more creative and explore other historical spaces around Grounds as renovations continue.
University Guides are also familiar with the clock’s history — including one story of 19th century debauchery, McDuff said.
“The first class of students who came to U.Va. were a bunch of hooligans,” McDuff said. “They would actually ride up and down on horseback and shoot at the clock to try to stop time so that they wouldn’t have to go to class.”
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