A SOLAR TIMEPIECE WITHOUT GNOMON
The largest shadow terminator sundial, The Shadow Terminator Sundial (sundial without gnomon) in Europe, is from the Veritas Group, created by the artist Alessandro Ferri (Dado) in Borbiago, a hamlet of the Municipality of Mira (Venice).
Alessandro Ferri transformed the piezometric tower into a solar-powered clock: to create this monumental public art intervention, he made use of the skills of the gnomonist A. Pantanali, G. De Donà and G. Casalegno, the coordinator Lidia Furlan, responsible for the project for the street decor “#fullcolor” and the artistic collaborators E.Pregnolato, G.Rossi, A.Apollonio.
The artist proposed the idea of transforming the Borbiago tower into a sundial, taking the opportunity of the scheduled maintenance of the tower.
The Borbiago tower, built between 1958 and 1960, is 32 meters high and guarantees the distribution of water in the area. The tank, made of reinforced concrete, is located 25 m from the ground; it is 5 m high and has a diameter of 12.7 m. It can contain 450 m^3 of drinking water, a storage, and a reserve for Borbiago.
The cylindrical water tank allowed the artist to use the top of the tower as a sundial, without the usual gnomon: the shadow is replaced by a “terminator”, represented by a “fictitious” line, not traced, but given by the separation between the shadowed part and the illuminated part. The writing “Borbiago” created on the tower’s stem and the four-meter-high numerical digits (from 1 to 12) painted on the cylinder of the tower are achieved with lettering attributes of the artist’s recent stylistic research.
“A solar timepiece without gnomon” an artwork of public art that tells in its entirety the fusion between Art, Gnomonic, Territory, and Community.
ARTRIBUNE.COM: “Alessandro Ferri (Dado) – Orologio solare senza gnomone”
EXIBART.COM: “Alessandro Ferri (Dado) realizza la più grande meridiana a terminatore d’ombra d’Europa”
ILGAZZETTINO.IT: “Mira. La torre dell’acquedotto trasformata nella meridiana più alta d’Europa”