Entrance to the Watch Pavilion in the Swiss Section

Showcases in the Swiss Watch Pavilion

In the pavilion the Swiss Watch Federation has an information desk with special Swiss staff capable of answering all questions concerning the Swiss watch industry in general and the display in New York in particular.

The showcases of the different exhibitors contain not only the latest and most marvellous achievements of modern technique but also a number of watches of historical interest loaned for the occasion by museums or private collectors, including, for example, a watch that belonged to Queen Victoria and another taken by Admiral Byrd on his expeditions to the Antarctic.

Swiss Time Center controls Fair's clocks

The official World's Fair Time Center is a masterpiece of complex horological machinery. It provides visitors with the time that's triple-checked for accuracy -- via radio signal from three famous observatories; Neuchatel in Switzerland, Greenwich in England and the U. S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D. C.

The Center, located in front of the Swiss Watch Pavilion, controls the 10 tall Swiss Clock Towers dotting the Fairgrounds. Its dramatic display of timing devices draws a regular stream of window-gazers from the crowds strolling along the Avenue of the United Nations South.

Closer view of timekeeping equipment

The Center's large digital clock shows hour, minute, second and tenth of a second. An electronic distributor relays impulses from the digital clock to the Swiss clock network throughout the Fair. The digial unit is monitored by an electrically driven master clock.

This master clock is, in turn, monitored by a quartz clock, so-called because its extraoridnary precision is derived from the vibrations of a quartz crystal suspended in a near-vacuum. Ultimate checking of the three instruments -- and subsequently of the tower clocks on the Fair site -- is by the radio signal from the obsrvatories.

Sidereal (star), solar and mean time are registred on other Time Center instruments. A giant plexiblas map shows time throughout the world.

The three Swiss firms that supplied Time Center equipment are: Ebauches, S.A.; Favag, S.A.; and Patek Philippe & Cie, S.A.

Ten Swiss Clock Towers dot the Fairgrounds

The Swiss Time Center provides time signals for a network of ten 15-foot high Swiss clock towers located throughout the Fair, thus giving the official time of the Fair. In addition, it also provides the timing impulses for the Fair's tallest clock, the 7-up Tower Clock, which soars 107 feet.

The sphere containing two clock movements is designed to represent the Unisphere. since the Swiss Watchmakers are "Time-Keepers to the World" there is a direct relationship between this phrase and the design of the sphere as a globe.

Closer view of Clock Face on Swiss Clock Towers

Only on impulses at 60-second intervals do the hands of each clock move, all advancing by exactly one minute at the same precise instant.

The position of clock No. 10 shown in this picture is directly in front of the General Motors exhibit, one of the most popular exhibits in the New York Fair.