Secularizing anatolia tick by tick: Clock towers in the Ottoman empire and the Turkish republic

Abstract

On 13 July 2005, the Bursa edition of the Turkish daily Hrriyet announced the inauguration of a clock tower in the small Anatolian town of narck. The clock tower, which stands thirteen meters (roughly forty-three feet) tall, comprises a square-sectioned, white-colored, and fluted Classical column atop which a cube with four yellow-rimmed clock dials sits. Metal pennants, also colored white, project from the corners of the cube. Despite its questionable aesthetic qualities, the town's mayor, Murat Erdoan, claims it beautified narck. Erdoan further explains that narck had sorely needed a clock tower and that the city is happy to have finally built one. © 2010 Cambridge University Press. © 2010 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.