Art, Architecture and the Future: Cambridge's New Clock

In his book The Architecture of Happiness, Alain de Botton explains our eternal fascination with shaping our surroundings. He says, "The very principle of... architecture has its origins in the notion that where we are critically determines what we are able to believe in." Houses, buildings, cathedrals, parks--as well as the objects that we use to decorate them--carry values and meanings about what we believe (or should believe) to be true, he asserts.

Corpus Christi Chapel

In my Cambridge house, Corpus Christi College, the key values that I take away are truth, order, and knowledge. With its towering spires and signature symmetry, Corpus' Gothic architecture invokes awe and admiration. And, walking around the New Court, built in the 1500s and completed in 1827, I don't find it difficult to get into geek mode. Quite simply, the regime of perfection imposed by the castle motif and stained glass images of the divine inspire one to summon the spirits of Cambridge scholars past--from Darwin to Newton, from Milton to Wittgenstein. Their alphanumerical formulae, philophical treatise, and imaginative prose all speak of their communion with truth after all, and the unforgiving perfection of these surroundings invite, if not demand, me to discover my own truths.

Corpus Christi New Court

At the same time, I do acknowledge that perfection possesses a dual economy of hope and despair. As much as perfect creations can illuminate and inspire, they can also expose human finitude, indeed our fragility, dependence, and transience in the world.

Corpus Christi Great Hall

That's why I got excited about the news that Corpus Christi has installed a brand new clock outside our library. Just this week, A Brief History of Time's Stephen Hawking came to Corpus to unveil the "chronophage" (literally, time eater), a sinister representation of time that is meant to remind students that we are always one second closer to our death.

Stephen Hawking Unveiling the Corpus Clock

The clock's inventor John Taylor explains: ""It is terrifying, it is meant to be... Basically I view time as not on your side. He'll eat up every minute of your life, and as soon as one has gone he's salivating for the next. It's not a bad thing to remind students of. I never felt like this until I woke up on my 70th birthday, and was stricken at the thought of how much I still wanted to do, and how little time remained."

The clock, priced at $1.8 million, is made iconic with the image of a demonic grasshopper. See the hypnotic clock in motion HERE. And the news article from The Guardian HERE.

It's morbid and profound. And makes you feel inadequate. Very, very Cambridge, I must say.