No doubt it is a nice tower but to mention it a sundial is overdone.
There is written:
/The orientation of the tower means that the shadow of the central
needle on the circular platform acts as a (rather impractical) sundial./
It's a vertical needle and an horizontal ring.
That could be a horizontal sundial at the pole but Barcelona is in Spain.
When I saw the tower at Montjuich I wansn't interested in sundials yet,
but I agree with Fer's remark: it
isn't a sundial at all. However, J.M. Vallhonrat and his colleagues in
Barcelona could possibly tell us more
about this interesting non-gnomonic (!?) tower.
I still remember when I was in Rotterdam (Nederland) having seen
something like that in front of the
KPN Telephone Company and reading in a touristic guide that in could
also serve as a sundial. After
two or three visits there (fantastic place, the Willhemina Plein
roundabouts, by the way) I finally called
Fer that explained to me that, of course, "that thing" was not a
sundial. So I guess these gnomonical claims
are more frequent than we expect.
Finally, I have been told that there are more bridges and buildings by
Calatrava here in Spain resembling sundials:
strictly speaking none of them is a true sundial, but they're nice
approximations.
Best regards,
Anselmo Perez Serrada
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