Cuckoo clock
Encyclopedia
Clock
A clock is an instrument used to indicate, keep, and co-ordinate time. The word clock is derived ultimately from the Celtic words clagan and clocca meaning "bell". A silent instrument missing such a mechanism has traditionally been known as a timepiece...
, typically pendulum-regulated
Pendulum clock
A pendulum clock is a clock that uses a pendulum, a swinging weight, as its timekeeping element. The advantage of a pendulum for timekeeping is that it is a resonant device; it swings back and forth in a precise time interval dependent on its length, and resists swinging at other rates...
, that strikes the hours
Striking clock
A striking clock is a clock that sounds the hours audibly on a bell or gong. In 12 hour striking, used most commonly in striking clocks today, the clock strikes once at 1 AM, twice at 2 AM, continuing in this way up to twelve times at 12 noon, then starts over, striking once at 1 PM, twice at 2...
with a sound like a common cuckoo's
Common Cuckoo
The Common Cuckoo is a member of the cuckoo order of birds, Cuculiformes, which includes the roadrunners, the anis and the coucals....
call and typically has a mechanical cuckoo that emerges with each note. The mechanism to produce the cuckoo call was installed in almost every kind of cuckoo clock since the middle of the 18th century and has remained almost without variation until the present.
Characteristics
Chalet
A chalet , also called Swiss chalet, is a type of building or house, native to the Alpine region, made of wood, with a heavy, gently sloping roof with wide, well-supported eaves set at right angles to the front of the house.-Definition and origin:...
to hang on a wall. In the "traditional style" the wooden case is decorated with carved leaves and animals. They have an automaton
Automaton
An automaton is a self-operating machine. The word is sometimes used to describe a robot, more specifically an autonomous robot. An alternative spelling, now obsolete, is automation.-Etymology:...
of the bird that appears through a small trap door while the clock is striking. The bird is often made to move as the clock strikes, typically by means of an arm that lifts the back of the carving.
There are two kinds of movements: one-day (30-hour) and eight-day clockworks. Some have musical devices, and play a tune on a Swiss music box after striking the hours and half-hours. Usually the melody sounds only at full hours in eight-day clocks and both at full and half hours in the one-day timepieces. Musical cuckoo clocks frequently have other automata which move when the music box plays. Today's cuckoo clocks are almost always weight driven, though a very few are spring driven. The weights are made of cast iron in a pine cone shape and the "cuc-koo" sound is created by two tiny gedackt
Gedackt
Gedackt is the name of a family of stops in pipe organ building. They are one of the most common types of organ flue pipe. The name is a German word, meaning "capped" or "covered".- History :...
(pipes) in the clock, with bellows attached to their tops. The clock's movement activates the bellows to send a puff of air into each pipe alternately when the timekeeper strikes.
In recent years, quartz
Quartz clock
A quartz clock is a clock that uses an electronic oscillator that is regulated by a quartz crystal to keep time. This crystal oscillator creates a signal with very precise frequency, so that quartz clocks are at least an order of magnitude more accurate than good mechanical clocks...
battery-powered cuckoo clocks have been available. As on the mechanical counterparts, the cuckoo bird emerges from its enclosure and moves up and down, but on the quartz timepieces it also flaps its wings and open his beak while it sings. Instead of the call being reproduced by the traditional bellows, is a digital recording of a cuckoo calling in the wild (with a corresponding echo). The cuckoo call is usually accompanied by the sound of a waterfall and other birds in the background. During the call the double doors open and the cuckoo emerges as usual, but only at the full hour, and they do not have a gong wire.
In musical quartz clocks, the hourly chime is followed by the replay of one of twelve popular melodies (one for each hour).
Some musical quartz clocks also reproduce many of the popular automata found on mechanical musical clocks, such as beer drinkers, wood choppers, jumping deer, and angry wives beating lazy husbands. One thing that is unique about the quartz c. clocks is that they include a light sensor, so that when the lights are turned off at night, they automatically silence the hourly chime. The weights are conventionally cast in the shape of pine
Pine
Pines are trees in the genus Pinus ,in the family Pinaceae. They make up the monotypic subfamily Pinoideae. There are about 115 species of pine, although different authorities accept between 105 and 125 species.-Etymology:...
cones
Conifer cone
A cone is an organ on plants in the division Pinophyta that contains the reproductive structures. The familiar woody cone is the female cone, which produces seeds. The male cones, which produce pollen, are usually herbaceous and much less conspicuous even at full maturity...
made of plastic, as well as the cuckoo bird and hands. The pendulum
Pendulum
A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced from its resting equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the equilibrium position...
bob is often another carved leaf. The weights and pendulum are purely ornamental though, as the clock is driven by battery power. As with mechanical cuckoo clocks, the dial is usually small, and typically marked with Roman numerals
Roman numerals
The numeral system of ancient Rome, or Roman numerals, uses combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet to signify values. The numbers 1 to 10 can be expressed in Roman numerals as:...
.
Precedents, clocks with automaton birds
Since antiquity there have been timepieces with an automaton bird. The first one is credited to the Greek mathematician, CtesibiusCtesibius
Ctesibius or Ktesibios or Tesibius was a Greek inventor and mathematician in Alexandria, Ptolemaic Egypt. He wrote the first treatises on the science of compressed air and its uses in pumps...
of Alexandria (ca.285-222 BC), who in the 2nd century BC "used water to sound a whistle and make a model owl move. He had invented the world's first "cuckoo" clock". Ctesibius
Ctesibius
Ctesibius or Ktesibios or Tesibius was a Greek inventor and mathematician in Alexandria, Ptolemaic Egypt. He wrote the first treatises on the science of compressed air and its uses in pumps...
may indeed lay claim to the first known "singing" clock which might be considered the ancestor of the modern cuckoo clocks.
Later, in the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, in 797 (or possibly 801), the caliph of Baghdad, Harun al-Rashid, presented Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
with an Asian elephant named Abul-Abbas and a clock, out of which came a mechanical bird to announce the hours. The maker of this clock remains unknown.
On the other hand, the elephant clock
Elephant clock
The elephant clock was a medieval islamic invention by al-Jazari , consisting of a weight powered water clock in the form of an elephant. The various elements of the clock are in the housing on top of the elephant...
, invented by the Arab inventor Al-Jazari
Al-Jazari
Abū al-'Iz Ibn Ismā'īl ibn al-Razāz al-Jazarī was a Muslim polymath: a scholar, inventor, mechanical engineer, craftsman, artist, mathematician and astronomer from Al-Jazira, Mesopotamia, who lived during the Islamic Golden Age...
, featured a humanoid automaton in the form of a mahout
Mahout
A mahout is a person who drives an elephant. The word mahout comes from the Hindi words mahaut and mahavat. Usually, a mahout starts as a boy in the 'family business' when he is assigned an elephant early in its life and they would be attached to each other throughout the elephant's life.The most...
striking a cymbal and a mechanical bird chirping after every hour or half-hour.
Finally, in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
during the Late Middle Ages
Late Middle Ages
The Late Middle Ages was the period of European history generally comprising the 14th to the 16th century . The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern era ....
and later, roosters were used to crow the hours in certain clocks, like the first astronomical clock
Strasbourg astronomical clock
The Strasbourg astronomical clock is located in the Cathédrale Notre-Dame of Strasbourg, Alsace, France. It is the third clock on that spot and dates from the time of the first French possession of the city...
in Strasbourg Cathedral
Strasbourg Cathedral
Strasbourg Cathedral or the Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Strasbourg, France. Although considerable parts of it are still in Romanesque architecture, it is widely consideredSusan Bernstein: , The Johns Hopkins University Press to be among the finest...
.
The first modern cuckoo clocks
Black Forest
The Black Forest is a wooded mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, southwestern Germany. It is bordered by the Rhine valley to the west and south. The highest peak is the Feldberg with an elevation of 1,493 metres ....
, an Augsburg
Augsburg
Augsburg is a city in the south-west of Bavaria, Germany. It is a university town and home of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben and the Bezirk Schwaben. Augsburg is an urban district and home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is, as of 2008, the third-largest city in Bavaria with a...
nobleman by the name of Philipp Hainhofer
Philipp Hainhofer
Philipp Hainhofer was a merchant, banker, diplomat and art collector in Augsburg. He is remembered, among other things, for the curiosity cabinets which he created with the assistance of a large number of Augsburg artisans.Hainhofer studied Law at the Universities of Siena and Padua, traveled...
(1578–1647) penned the first known description of a modern cuckoo clock. The clock belonged to Prince Elector August von Sachsen.
Likewise, in a widely known handbook on music, Musurgia Universalis (1650), the scholar Athanasius Kircher
Athanasius Kircher
Athanasius Kircher was a 17th century German Jesuit scholar who published around 40 works, most notably in the fields of oriental studies, geology, and medicine...
describes a mechanical organ with several automated figures, including a mechanical cuckoo. This book contains the first documented description -in words and pictures- of how a mechanical cuckoo works. We must assume that Kircher did not invent the cuckoo mechanism, because this book, like his other works, is a compilation of known facts into a handbook for reference purposes. The engraving clearly shows all the elements of a mechanical cuckoo. The bird automatically opens its beak and moves both its wings and tail. Simultaneously, we hear the whistle
Whistle
A whistle or call is a simple aerophone, an instrument which produces sound from a stream of forced air. It may be mouth-operated, or powered by air pressure, steam, or other means...
- call of the cuckoo, created by two whistles of organ pipes, tuned to a minor or major third. There is only one fundamental difference from the Black Forest-type cuckoo mechanism: The functions of Kircher's bird are not governed by a count wheel in a strike train, but a pinned program barrel synchronizes the movements and sounds of the bird.
On the other hand, in 1669 Domenico Martinelli, in his handbook on elementary clocks "Horologi Elementari", suggests using the call of the cuckoo to indicate the hours. Starting at that time the mechanism of the cuckoo clock was known. Any mechanic or clockmaker, who could read Latin or Italian, knew after reading the books that it was feasible to have the cuckoo announce the hours.
Subsequently, cuckoo clocks appeared in regions that had not been known for their clockmaking. For instance, the Historische Nachrichten (1713), an anonymous publication generally attributed to Court Preacher Bartholomäus Holzfuss, mentions a musical clock in the Oranienburg palace in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. This clock, originating in West Prussia
West Prussia
West Prussia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773–1824 and 1878–1919/20 which was created out of the earlier Polish province of Royal Prussia...
, played eight church hymns and had a cuckoo that announced the quarter hours. Unfortunately this clock, like the one mentioned by Hainhofer in 1629, can no longer be traced today.
A few decades later, people in the Black Forest started to build cuckoo clocks.
The first cuckoo clocks made in the Black Forest
Black Forest
The Black Forest is a wooded mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, southwestern Germany. It is bordered by the Rhine valley to the west and south. The highest peak is the Feldberg with an elevation of 1,493 metres ....
but there is unanimity that the unusual clock with the bird call very quickly conquered the region. Already by the middle of the 18th century, several small clockmaking shops produced cuckoo clocks with wooden gears. So the first Black Forest examples were created between 1740 and 1750. They had hand-painted shields.
It is hard to judge how large the proportion of cuckoo clocks was among the total production of modern movement Black Forest clocks. Based on the proportions of pieces surviving to the present, it must have been a small fraction of the total production.
Regarding its murky origins, there are two main fables from the first two chroniclers of Black Forest horology which tell contradicting stories about it:
The first is from Father Franz Steyrer, written in his "Geschichte der Schwarzwälder Uhrmacherkunst" (History of Clockmaking in the Black Forest) in 1796. He describes a meeting between two clock peddlers from Furtwangen (a town in the Black Forest) who met a travelling Bohemian merchant who sold wooden cuckoo clocks. Both the Furtwangen traders were so excited that they bought one. On bringing it home they copied it and showed their imitation to other Black Forest clock traders. Its popularity grew in the region and more and more clockmakers started producing them. With regard to this chronicle, the historian Adolf Kistner claimed in his book "Die Schwarzwälder Uhr" (The Black Forest Clock) published in 1927, that there is not any Bohemian cuckoo clock in existence to verify the thesis that this clock was used as a sample to copy and produce Black Forest cuckoo clocks. Bohemia had no fundamental clockmaking industry during that period.
The second story is related by another priest, Markus Fidelis Jäck, in a passage extracted from his report "Darstellungen aus der Industrie und des Verkehrs aus dem Schwarzwald" (Description of Industry and Commerce of the Black Forest), (1810) said as follows: "The cuckoo clock was invented (in 1730) by a clock-master (Franz Anton Ketterer) from Schönwald (Black Forest). This craftsman adorned a clock with a moving bird that announced the hour with the cuckoo-call. The clock-master got the idea of how to make the cuckoo-call from the bellows of a church organ". As time went on, the second version became the more popular, and is the one generally related today. Unfortunately, neither Steyrer nor Jäck quote any sources for their claims, making them unverifiable.
On the other side, R. Dorer pointed out, in 1948, that Franz Anton Ketterer (1734–1806) could not have been the inventor of the cuckoo clock in 1730 because he hadn't then been born. This statement was corroborated by Gerd Bender in the most recent edition of the first volume of his work "Die Uhrenmacher des hohen Schwarzwaldes und ihre Werke" (The Clockmakers of the High Black Forest and their Works) (1998) where he wrote that the cuckoo clock was not native to the Black Forest and also stated that: "There are no traces of the first production line of cuckoo clocks made by Ketterer". However, Schaaf in "Schwarzwalduhren" (Black Forest Clocks) (1995), provides his own research which leads to the earliest cuckoos being in the "Franken-Niederbayern" area (East of Germany), in the direction of Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
(a region of the Czech Republic), which he notes, lends credence to the Steyrer version.
The legend that the c. clock was invented by a clever Black Forest mechanic in 1730 (Franz Anton Ketterer) keeps being told over and over again. But all of this is not true. This type of clock is much older than clockmaking in the Black Forest. As early as 1650 the bird with the distinctive call was part of the reference book knowledge recorded in handbooks. It took nearly a century for the cuckoo clock to find its way to the Black Forest, where for many decades it remained a tiny niche product.
Although the idea of placing an automaton cuckoo bird in a clock to announce the passing of time did not originate in the Black Forest
Black Forest
The Black Forest is a wooded mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, southwestern Germany. It is bordered by the Rhine valley to the west and south. The highest peak is the Feldberg with an elevation of 1,493 metres ....
, it is necessary to emphasize that the cuckoo clock as we know it today, comes from this region located in southwest Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
whose tradition of clockmaking started in the late 17th century. The Black Forest people who created the cuckoo clock industry developed it, and still come up with new designs and technical improvements which have made the cuckoo clock a valued work of art all over the world. The cuckoo clock history is linked to the Black Forest.
Even though the functionality of the cuckoo mechanism has remained basically unchanged, the appearance has changed as case designs and clock movements evolved in the region. In the beginning of the 19th century the now traditional Black Forest clock design, the "Schilduhr" (Shield-clock), was characterized by having a painted flat square wooden face behind which all the clockwork was attached. On top of the square was usually a semicircle of highly decorated painted wood which contained the door for the cuckoo. These usually depicted floral patterns (so-called “Rosenuhren”) and often had a painted column, on either side of the chapter ring, others were decorated with illustrations of fruit as well. Some pieces also bore the names of the bride and bridegroom on the dial, which were normally painted by women. There was no cabinet surrounding the clockwork in this model. This design was the most prevalent between the end of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century. These timekeepers were typically sold from door to door by "Uhrenträger" (Clock-peddlers) who would carry the dials and movements on their backs displayed on huge backpacks.
Towards the middle of the nineteenth century till the 1870s, cuckoo clocks were also manufactured in the Black Forest type of clock known as "Rahmenuhr" (Framed-clock). As the name suggests, these scarce wall cuckoo clocks consisted of a picture frame, usually with a typical Black Forest scene painted on a wooden background or a sheet metal, lithography
Lithography
Lithography is a method for printing using a stone or a metal plate with a completely smooth surface...
and screen-printing
Screen-printing
Screen printing is a printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-blocking stencil. The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink or other printable materials which can be pressed through the mesh as a sharp-edged image onto a substrate...
were other techniques used. Other common themes depicted were; hunting, love, family, death, birth, mythology, military and Christian religious scenes. Works by painters such as Johann Baptist Laule (1817–1895) and Carl Heine (1842–1882) were used to decorate the fronts of this and other types of clocks. The painting was almost always protected by a glass and some models displayed a person or an animal with blinking or flirty eyes as well, being operated by a simple mechanism worked by means of the pendulum swinging. The cuckoo normally took part in the scene painted, and would pop out in 3D, as usual, to announce the hour.
From the 1860s
1860s
The 1860s were an extremely turbulent decade with numerous cultural, social, and political upheavals in Europe and America. Revolutions were prevalent in Germany and the Ottoman Empire...
until the twenties
1920s
File:1920s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: Third Tipperary Brigade Flying Column No. 2 under Sean Hogan during the Irish Civil War; Prohibition agents destroying barrels of alcohol in accordance to the 18th amendment, which made alcoholic beverages illegal throughout the entire decade; In...
, and according to the decorative tastes prevailing in each moment, cuckoo clock cases were manufactured following different styles then in vogue such as; Biedermier (some models also included a painting of a person or animal with moving eyes), Neoclassical or Georgian (certain pieces also displayed a painting), Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Art Nouveau, etc., becoming a suitable complementary piece for the bourgeois living room. These timepieces, based both on architectural and home decorative styles, are rarer than the popular ones looking like gatekeeper-houses (Bahnhäusle style clocks) and they could be mantel, wall or bracket clocks.
But the popular house-shaped Bahnhäusleuhr (Railroad house clock) virtually forced the discontinuation of other designs within a few years.
1850 – The Bahnhäusle clock, a design of the century from Furtwangen
Robert Gerwig
Robert Gerwig was a German civil engineer.Gerwig was born on 2 May 1820 and attended the Großherzogliches Polytechnikum where he studied civil engineering, primarily road construction....
, launched a public competition to submit designs for modern clockcases, which would allow homemade products to attain a professional appearance.
Friedrich Eisenlohr (1805–1854), who as an architect had been responsible for creating the buildings along the then new and first Badenian Rhine valley railroad, submitted the most far-reaching design. Eisenlohr enhanced the facade of a standard railroad-guard’s residence, as he had built many of them, with a clock dial. His "Wallclock with shield decorated by ivy vines," (in reality the ornament were grapevines and not ivy) as it is referred to in a surviving, handwritten report from the Clockmakers School from 1851 or 1852, became the prototype of today’s popular souvenir cuckoo clocks.
Eisenlohr was also up-to-date stylistically. He was inspired by local images; rather than copying them slavishly, he modified them. Contrary to most present-day cuckoo clocks, his case features light, unstained wood and were decorated with symmetrical, flat fretwork ornaments.
Eisenlohr's idea became an instant hit, because the modern design of the Bahnhäusle clock appealed to the decorating tastes of the growing bourgeoisie and thereby tapped into new and growing markets.
While the Clockmakers School was satisfied to have Eisenlohr’s clock case sketches, they were not fully realized in their original form. Eisenlohr had proposed a wooden facade; Gerwig preferred a painted metal front combined with an enamel dial. But despite intensive campaigns by the Clockmakers School, sheet metal fronts decorated with oil paintings (or coloured litographs) never became a major market segment because of the high cost and labour-intensive process, hence only a few were produced (from the 1850s until around 1870), whether wall or mantel versions, and are nowadays sought-after collector pieces.
Characteristically, the makers of the first Bahnhäusle clocks deviated from Eisenlohr's sketch in only one way: they left out the cuckoo mechanism. Unlike today, the design with the little house was not synonymous with a cuckoo clock in the first years after 1850. This is another indication that at that time cuckoo clocks could not have been an important market segment.
Only in December 1854, Johann Baptist Beha
Johann Baptist Beha
Johann Baptist Beha was a prestigious Black Forest clockmaker born in Oberbränd . He was trained by his father, the master clockmaker Vinzenz Beha , in his workshop where he built around 365 clocks between 1839 and 1845. At that time V. Beha was already known for the quality of his clocks, he made...
, the best known maker of cuckoo clocks of his time, sold two of them, with oil paintings on their fronts, to the Furtwangen clock dealer Gordian Hettich, which were described as Bahnhöfle Uhren ("Railroad station clocks"). More than a year later, on January 20, 1856, another respected Furtwangen-based cuckoo clockmaker, Theodor Ketterer
Theodor Ketterer
Theodor Ketterer was a renowned Black Forest clockmaker who worked in Furtwangen, .Although his cuckoo clocks were not as popular and known as the ones made by the Beha company, they were of the highest quality and made in low numbers....
, sold one to Joseph Ruff in Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
(Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
).
Concurrently with Beha and Ketterer, other Black Forest
Black Forest
The Black Forest is a wooded mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, southwestern Germany. It is bordered by the Rhine valley to the west and south. The highest peak is the Feldberg with an elevation of 1,493 metres ....
clockmakers must have started to equip Bahnhäusle clocks with cuckoo mechanisms to satisfy the rapidly growing demand for this type of clock. Starting in the mid-1850s there was a real boom in this market.
By 1860, the Bahnhäusle style had started to develop away from its original, “severe” graphic form, and evolve, among other designs, toward the well-known case with three-dimensional woodcarvings, like the Jagdstück ("Hunt piece", design created in Furtwangen in 1861), a cuckoo clock with carved oak foliage and hunting motives, such as trophy animals, guns and powder pouches.
By 1862 the reputed clockmaker Johann Baptist Beha, started to enhance his richly decorated Bahnhäusle clocks with hands carved from bone and weights cast in the shape of fir cones. Even today this combination of elements is characteristic for cuckoo clocks, although the hands are usually made of wood or plastic, white celluloid was employed in the past too. As for the weights, there was during this second half of the 19th century, a few models which featured weights cast in the shape of a Gnome
Gnome
A gnome is a diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature...
and other curious forms.
Only ten years after its invention by Friedrich Eisenlohr, all variations of the house-theme had reached maturity.
There were also Bahnhäusle timepieces and its derived manufactured as mantel clocks but not as many as the wall versions.
The basic cuckoo clock of today is the railway-house (Bahnhäusle) form, still with its rich ornamentation, and these are known under the name of "traditional" (or carved); which display carved leaves, birds, deer heads (like the Jagdstück design), other animals, etc. The richly decorated Bahnhäusle clocks have become a symbol of the Black Forest that is instantly understood anywhere in the world.
Even today it is a favourite souvenir of travelers in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
and Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
. The centre of production continues to be the Black Forest region of Germany, in the area of Schonach
Schonach im Schwarzwald
Schonach im Schwarzwald is a town in the district of Schwarzwald-Baar in Baden-Württemberg in Germany....
and Titisee-Neustadt
Titisee-Neustadt
Titisee-Neustadt is a municipality in the district of Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. It is made up of the six communities of Neustadt, Langenordnach, Rudenberg, Titisee, Schwärzenbach and Waldau.The town of Neustadt is a spa known for its Kneipp hydrotherapeutic...
, where there are several dozen firms making the whole clock or parts of it.
The cuckoo clock became successful and world famous after Friedrich Eisenlohr contributed the Bahnhäusle design to the 1850 competition at the Furtwangen Clockmakers School.
The "Chalet" style, the Swiss contribution
The "Chalet" style originated at the end of the 19th century in Switzerland, at that time they were highly valued as souvenirs. Indeed, music and jewellery boxes of several sizes as well as timepieces were manufactured in the shape of a typical Swiss chalet, some of those clocks had also the added feature of a cuckoo bird and other automata.There are currently three basic styles, named after the different traditional houses depicted: Black Forest chalet, Swiss chalet (with two types the "Brienz
Brienz
Brienz is a municipality in the Interlaken-Oberhasli administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.The village lies on the north bank of Lake Brienz in the Bernese Oberland at the foot of the Brienzer Rothorn mountain.-History:...
" and the "Emmental
Emmental
For the cheese made in the region, see Emmental .The Emmental is a region in west central Switzerland, forming part of the canton of Bern. It is a hilly landscape comprising the basins of the Emme and Ilfis rivers. The region is mostly devoted to farming, particularly dairy farming...
") and finally the Bavarian chalet.
Commonly found in the chalet style, is the incorporation of a Swiss music box, the most popular melodies are "The Happy Wanderer
The Happy Wanderer
"The Happy Wanderer" is a popular song by Friedrich-Wilhelm Möller written shortly after World War II. It is often mistaken for a German folk song, but it is actually an original composition...
" and "Edelweiss
Edelweiss (song)
"Edelweiss" is a show tune from the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music. It is named after the edelweiss, a white flower found high in the Alps...
" which sound alternately. Along with the common projecting bird, it may also display other types of animated figurines, examples include woodcutters, moving beer drinkers and turning water wheels. Some "traditional" style cuckoo clocks feature a music box and dancing figurines too.
Contemporary design
Nowadays cuckoo clocks are manufactured inspired by contemporary decorative styles as well. These modern timekeepers are characterized by its functionalForm follows function
Form follows function is a principle associated with modern architecture and industrial design in the 20th century. The principle is that the shape of a building or object should be primarily based upon its intended function or purpose....
, schematic and minimalist
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
aesthetic.
Although certain simplified design with simple, clear lines had been produced in past decades, the real boom of seeing the cuckoo clock more as an object of design, where the creativity and talent of designers are freely expressed and where the only limit seems to be imagination, was initiated in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
when Pascal Tarabay devised a model for the firm Diamantini & Domeniconi. This was one of the first that helped start this hot trend back when it was launched in 2005. It presents the silhouette of the typical cuckoo clock with deer head but without any sort of three dimensional woodwork, it only has a flat surface with a gap, from which the bird pops out as usual. It is commonly painted in a monochrome way using different tones such as white, black, loud colours, etc.
One year later, Rombach und Haas became the first Black Forest clock manufacturer which introduced this new generation of timepieces in 2006, producing a model conceived by Tobias Reischle. Then in 2008 they started its own creations, thanks to the initiative of both Conny Haas and the company's general manager Ingolf Haas. Their range include minimalist, industrial, and naturalist designs, as well as intricate fretwork and hand-painted pieces.
Out of Europe, it is worth pointing out the collaborative project carried out between Isetan
Isetan
is a Japanese department store. Based in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Isetan has branches throughout Japan and East Asia, including Bangkok, Jinan, Kaohsiung, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, Singapore and Tianjin and formerly in Hong Kong, London and Vienna....
department store and the association "more trees". This show was also part of the DesignTide
DesignTide
DesignTide Tokyo is an annual design event that takes place in Tokyo in late autumn. It is analogous to the type of design events that take place in major cities around the world such as Milan's Salone del Mobile, Cologne's IMM, New York City's ICFF and the Stockholm Furniture Fair.Other events...
program at Tokyo design week (Oct.30 - Nov.3, 2009), the annual exhibition of works throughout the city of Tokyo, held at individual shops and galleries. The Isetan Living Exhibition consisted of a collection of 50 personal interpretations of a cuckoo clock by 50 Japanese artists and designers, based on one original design by Naoto Fukasawa
Naoto Fukasawa
is a Japanese industrial designer, born in Yamanashi Prefecture in 1956. He graduated from Tama Art University in 1980. After having acted as the head of the American company IDEO's Tokyo office, he established Naoto Fukasawa Design in 2003...
, their source of inspiration was woods. They were made from timber removed from over-planted forests with the aim of presenting a "product that can help make life more fun" as well as to contribute to regenerate the forest.
As for the models, there are a great variety, most of them avant-garde and adventurous creations made of different materials and geometric shapes, such as rhombuses, squares, cubes, circles, rectangles, ovals, etc. Without carving, these clocks are usually flat and smooth. Some are painted in a single colour while others are polychromes with abstract or figurative paintings, multicolour lines and stripes, others include text and phrases, etc.
About the clockwork, some are quartz and some mechanical.
Museums
At the Cuckooland MuseumCuckooland Museum
The Cuckooland Museum, previously known as the Cuckoo Clock Museum, is a museum that exhibits mainly cuckoo clocks, located in Tabley, co. Cheshire, England...
, in the United Kingdom, is located what is considered the world's largest and finest collection of antique cuckoo clocks.
Other museums that display important collections are the Deutsches Uhrenmuseum
Deutsches Uhrenmuseum
The German Clock Museum is situated near the centre of the Black Forest town of Furtwangen im Schwarzwald, a historic centre of clockmaking. It features permanent and temporary exhibits on the history of timekeeping...
and Dorf- und Uhrenmuseum Gütenbach
Dorf- und Uhrenmuseum Gütenbach
The Dorf- und Uhrenmuseum Gütenbach is located in the village of Gütenbach, one of the historic centers of homebased manufacturing of clocks in the Black Forestregion of Germany near the town of Furtwangen im Schwarzwald. It features primarily permanent and temporary exhibits on the local history...
, both in Germany.
See also
- Cuckoo clock in cultureCuckoo clock in cultureThe cuckoo clock, more than any other kind of timepiece, has often featured in literature, music, cinema, television, etc., in the Western culture, as a metaphor or allegory of innocence, childhood, old age, past, fun, mental disorder, etc...
- List of world's largest cuckoo clocks
- Automaton clockAutomaton clockAn automaton clock or automata clock is a type of striking clock featuring automatons. Clocks like these were built from the Middle Ages through to Victorian times in Europe. A Cuckoo clock is a simple form of this type of clock. The automatons usually perform on the hour, half-hour or...