The Man Behind the Cifra 3

Gino Valle is a world-renowned architect, designer and painter, who was born into a family of designers and artists, which probably explains why he University Institute of Architecture of Venice, and graduated in 1948 and in that same year, he followed his father’s footsteps, studying under him and his sister for some years. Interested in establishing relationships between people and simple objects, he later worked with major companies such as Zanussi, where he designed the plate refrigerator, which served as a breakthrough in consumer appliances at the time. In 1945, he began working with Solari lineadesign on their popularized flip clock, the Cifra 5. The electromechanical flip clock won the “Compasso d’Oro,” in 1956. With the help of John Myer, Valle elevated the clock with rollers and forty flaps, containing digits and letters and at the end of the sixties, he created the Cifra 3 – which is displayed in railway stations and airports around the world.

 

 

The Making of the Cifra 3

The Cifra 3 is more than just a clock; it carries the ability to connect people from all over the world and it has done so since 1960. According to its website, the Cifra 3 is “considered one of the highest expressions of technology and creative design combined, between an engineering and communicative power.” Designed by Gino Valle at the end of the sixties, the Cifra 3 is recognized as a twentieth century design icon all over the world. It is a table clock with white digits on a black background and its lettering has a distinctive typeface for hours and minutes, which was chosen by follow industrial designer, Massimo Vignelli. Its functioning has remained unchanged since 1966. With the help of Belgian inventor, John Myer, they gave the Cifra 3 a voice, using the flap system design, as well as its distinctive flipping sound, which also serves as an active representation of the incessant flow of time. Noted as one of the greatest inventions and designs in the 20th century, the Cifra 3 is included as a permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, as well as the Science Museum in London. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The History of Solari

Solari is an international brand that holds a strong authority in the business of time and industrial clock making. Created in Pesariis, Italy, in 1725, the company was initially known as the “Old and Awarded Tower Clock Company,” but it has managed to tower above that perception with its innovative range of designs.

For over two hundred years, Solari continuously redefines how people view and see time, using cutting-edge products and technology that still encompass Solari’s traditional aesthetic, ethos and history, which can be seen all across the world in major transportation hubs today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

TWA Terminal, JFK Airport From an architecture icon to a boutique hotel

If you have landed at JFK Airport in New York City, you’ve probably seen the Trans World Airlines (TWA) Terminal. Built in 1962, the shapely building was designed by Eero Saarinen to usher in the Jet Age. Designated a New York City landmark in 1994 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005, it has been unused for the last 14 years because it couldn’t fit modern aircraft.

However, the terminal was going to be given a new life—as a boutique hotel. Due to its historic status, the building’s exterior will remain untouched, but the interior will be given a full makeover.

When renovated, the new 40,000 sqf. facility will have 505 guest rooms, a 10,000 sqf. observation deck, six restaurants, multiple bars (which the original terminal also housed), a fitness center, and conference space.

The building, with its distinctive design, has had its share of memorable pop culture moments. It was featured in Leonardo DiCaprio’s Catch Me If You Can. It also was where the Beatles entered the US for the first time, in 1964.

One of the main features of the terminal is the split-flap display Solari designed by architect Gino Valle and enclosed into the unmistakable oval shell designed by Eero Saarinen, completely covered with white tiles made by the famous italian mosaic school of Spilimbergo.

In the same year, in 1962, the remote alpha numeric indicator  for airports and railway stations of Solari won the Golden Compass, the second after that of 1956 for the design of electro-mechanical clock digits snap, Cifra5

Terminal Detail

Split-flap Display Solari designed by architect Gino Valle

Waiting Lounge with Solari Split-Flap Display 

 1962 Advertising

2016 Advertising

Solari Enters Restaurant Champeaux’s Kitchen A wall-menu in the new brasserie

 

Solari Lineadesign entered into the kitchen of Champeaux.

The “Restaurant Champeaux” is the new brasserie in Paris which, in just over a month after opening, is already a success and a staple destination. The Champeux name derives from that of an old Paris restaurant opened in the year 1800 in the Place de la Bourse, which Emile Zola, a French writer, wrote about at the beginning of his novel “L’Argent.” This restaurant is located in the first district under the canopy of the Forum des Halles, one of the trendiest regions in the French capital.

Like a metronome of the brasserie life, the scoreboard at Solari palette, which is 8.6 meters long and 1.5 meters high, flows and is in direct interaction with the kitchen. It also displays menu listings, provides timing for food and drink arrival, lists dish specials and it also showcases the Chef’s favorite food preferences. During the day, the board is constantly changing according to the times, while products are being created in the kitchen, thanks to the technology that has made the Solari company known worldwide, such as the vane roller system, which was patented in 1966.

Its unmistakable sound accompanies travelers in airports, stations and subways around the world. Those who want to take home a piece of this monumental atmosphere, can do so thanks to Solari Lineadesign, a company that revolutionized the notion of time from the sixties with the creation of the Cifra 3 and the Dator 60, which were designed by the late Gino Valle.

The New York Times Style Magazine “The Clock That Time Cannot Improve”

by Tom Delavan SEPT 6, 2016

cifra-3-joshua-scott-credit

Credit Joshua Scott / The Cifra 3 clock, designed in the mid-’60s by the Italian architect Gino Valle, with numbers designed by Massimo Vignelli. 

“Anyone who travels is familiar with the large flip-board displays indicating the gate of your plane, train or bus. Their distinctive shuffling sound, which sends travelers scurrying like a well-orchestrated flash mob, is so synonymous with departure that when Boston’s North Station upgraded its boards to LED displays, they were programmed to emit the familiar clicketyclack, as much for nostalgia as for necessity: How else to get passengers to look up from their phones?

Less familiar — unknown, more likely — is the man responsible for effectively conducting this movement of millions of people for the past 60 years, Remigio Solari. His family’s business had been making clocks for towers in the Dolomites of Northern Italy since 1725. You could say the movement of time was in his blood, or perhaps he had too much of it on his hands, but in the late 1940s, the self-taught engineer had a breakthrough: Rather than hands that move around fixed numbers on a dial, he inscribed the numbers on metal flaps that rotated around a wheel. It was a revelation in terms of clarity, particularly when standing at a distance. In 1956, the first “Solari board” was installed in a train station in Belgium, becoming the worldwide standard for rail and airway travel soon after.

Remigio died in 1957, but his brother Fermo continued his work. With the architect Gino Valle, the Solari company introduced a small electromechanical flip clock, the Cifra 5. While this model won the Compasso d’Oro award at Milan’s International Furniture Fair, it was the Cifra 3, designed in the mid-’60s, which had families everywhere replacing analog clocks with the new technology. The minimalist packaging — a glossy thermoplastic cylinder to accommodate the flaps’ rotation — and the crisp sans serif digits designed by Massimo Vignelli, were soon copied by everyone from General Electric to Hitachi.

I got my own Sony knockoff in 1972. It was the first piece of technology that I fetishized and had to have. Owning it felt somehow like I was invested in the future, or at least a part of it. Later I discovered the source of my so-called digital clock, the Cifra 3, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which had added it to its collection in 1966, because it was, and is, “the purest expression of industrial design,” according to senior curator Paola Antonelli.

Then I had to have the real thing and found I wasn’t alone. The clock, discontinued in 1989, had an almost cultlike following, fueling a secondary market among collectors. Solari’s new owners took note and last year put the Cifra 3 back into production at their factory in Udine, where employees continue to assemble it by hand. I was able to get one of the first reissues in Europe (it becomes available in the U.S. this fall), and it now sits, not by my bedside, but on the mantel in my living room, next to other beautiful items, like a midcentury Lucy Rie vase.

Although the Cifra 3 can’t compete with the Solari boards in terms of the number of customers served (the company estimates that it has helped 5.5 billion people navigate trips), it is — like its descendant, the iPod — a potent example of how design can elevate technology.”

#savethesign 30th Street Station, The Solari Board will soon be replaced.

THE VIEWPOINT OF THE PASSENGERS

The famous Split-flap display that stands in the middle of the Philadelphia 30th Street Station, produced by Solari di Udine, will soon be replaced by a digital board. 

Many Journalists and Magazines wrote about this news, like Wired, SmithsonianMetro, Philly, Philly Blog, CityLab, CBS Philly,PhillyVoice, WITF, The Washington Times, PRI etc. 

The name and popularity of Solari comes from way back in 1725, the year in which the first document records the existence of the Fratelli Solari Company as an “Old and Prized Tower Clocking Industry”. From then on the company’s history is filled with many industrial successes. Believing in the power of an idea and transforming it into success: this is what the two brothers Fermo and Remigio Solari were able to achieve. They established their name worldwide in the fifties, bringing to prominence a company with great potential and bearer of innovative inventions, such as the split-flap system, which revolutionized standard methods of displaying time and information to the public, to the fore.

When the Solari brothers dynasty came to an end, the company management was in the hands of large industrial Groups. The the company property passed on to entrepreneur Dr. Massimo Paniccia who consequently made Solari today’s model of successful economics. 

The search for perfection, the desire to reach unique solutions, multi-year experience at the service of every requirement: Solari’s prestige has been founded on these values for almost three centuries. Solari installed over 3000 systems worldwide, by which they move over 5.5 billion people every year. 

When the CEO, Massimo Paniccia, had read all the articles and comments about the replacing of the flap board, was pleasantly surprised. “The best wish to the future of Our Company is that, in 40 or 50 years from now, someone in the world will be sad if one of the recently installed public information systems will be dismantled. This is our main focus and the reason of our choices; the search of perfection, both for the client and for the user. I recognize also the meaning and fascination of the displays and flip clocks, design icons throughout the world like the Cifra 3 (Ndr. part of the permanent collection of the London Science Museum, of the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) in New York and, after November, of the Design Museum of London). Indeed, Solari re-launched in production his historical clocks, in order to enter the houses of every passenger.”