Deconstructing Product Design

City Hall Clock

Arne Jacobsen, 1955

1. This classic clock was designed for the Rødovre City Hall in Copenhagen, Denmark, one of many accoutrements designed by Jacobsen specifically for the project. The clock has become an icon for functionalism. It distills the representation of time down to its barest essence without compromising readability. The clock’s use of lines and circles to mark time is in fact more functional and usable than traditional numeric markers in that it is universal, enabling populations accustomed to Roman, Cyrillic, Arabic, Western, and other number systems to tell time with comparable efficiently without unfamiliar symbols or risk of alienation. Accordingly, the clock looks perfectly modern and at home anywhere in the ...