I check the time roughly forty times a day, and I couldn’t tell you what any of those glances felt like. A phone screen lights up, a number flashes, and I move on before the information even registers. That’s the strange thing about how we live with time now: we have more ways than ever to know what hour it is, and less reason than ever to actually notice it. Digital displays don’t ask anything of us. They just report, and we absorb, and nothing about the moment sticks.

That’s the gap a new piece from Istanbul studio Omora Lusso seems built to close. Instead of showing the hour as flat information, it makes you wait for it, watch for it, and experience it as something closer to a small performance than a readout. The studio calls it Muvaqqit 60, and as the press materials put it, it’s a 60-centimetre kinetic time artwork that transforms the reading of time into a recurring physical ritual.

Designer: Omora Lusso

The name itself carries weight before the mechanism even moves. Muvaqqit takes its name from the historical timekeeper responsible for determining and regulating time through astronomy and exact observation, and in Ottoman cities, muvakkithanes were dedicated timekeeping rooms, often associated with mosque complexes, where prayer times were calculated and astronomical knowledge was practised. I appreciate that Omora Lusso didn’t try to costume this piece in false antiquity. The studio does not reproduce the instruments or forms of these spaces; instead, it reinterprets their culture of precision, contemplation and measured time through contemporary kinetic design. That distinction matters. It would have been easy, and a little lazy, to slap old astronomical symbols onto a modern object and call it heritage. This is a harder, more honest route: borrowing the spirit of a tradition rather than its skin.

The piece itself only reveals what it can do once a minute, and that restraint is the whole point. Once each minute, Muvaqqit performs a time-indication sequence: a comet-like progression of light moves through its layered scales as a mirror-silvered kinetic bird rises into position, while the hour, five-minute interval and minute increment are read across three curved scales, with an AM/PM display and an illuminated moon-phase arc completing the temporal composition. The rest of the time, it stays quiet on purpose. Between these moments, the work remains visually restrained, allowing anticipation to become part of the experience. There’s a kind of confidence in a product that chooses to stay dark and still for fifty-nine seconds just so the sixtieth means something. Most gadgets are terrified of silence. This one leans into it.

Omer Fatih Sevinctekin, the studio’s founder, frames the whole project as a question rather than a solution, which I found refreshing given how many product launches arrive dressed as answers. He describes it as beginning with the question of whether time can be experienced as a ritual rather than simply read as information, wanting the work to connect Istanbul’s culture of precise timekeeping with a contemporary language of motion, light and material.

Materially, the Noir Silver edition plays a straightforward but effective contrast game. It pairs a soft-black metal frame and anthracite inner dial with a hand-polished, mirror-silvered brass bird, presented behind a four-millimetre glass front, with a controlled palette designed to sharpen the contrast between stillness and movement, and between the dark architectural body and the brief illumination of the time ritual. Nothing about it is loud until the moment it needs to be.

This isn’t a mass object, and it was never going to be. Muvaqqit 60 Noir Silver is limited to 50 pieces worldwide, offered at USD 6,000, with each work produced in Istanbul and accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity, a dedicated wooden presentation case, art-handling gloves and operating materials. That price and scarcity will keep it out of most homes, and I won’t pretend otherwise. But the idea underneath it, that time deserves a moment of attention instead of a passing glance, doesn’t require owning the object to land. The studio’s broader collection treats time not as a static reading but as an event, a sequence that can be anticipated, observed and remembered, and that’s a quietly radical stance in a culture that mostly wants its information delivered instantly and forgotten just as fast.

The post A Clock That Refuses to Just Tell You the Time first appeared on Yanko Design.

Double-sided wall clocks are not new. They have existed for decades, quietly moving between public and private spaces. While many people associate them with railway stations and institutional corridors across Europe, they also made their way into homes in earlier times, often as decorative yet functional pieces in hallways or larger living spaces. Over time, however, they faded out of domestic interiors, replaced by flatter, more minimal wall clocks designed to sit quietly against a surface.

Turin-based brand Goofball is bringing this format back, but with a distinctly modern lens. Their Perch clock does not just revive an old idea; it reframes it for how we live today.

Designer: Goofball

At first glance, the concept feels familiar. A clock that extends out from the wall, visible from both sides. But in a home setting, this simple shift changes everything. Instead of being something you look at from one fixed position, the clock becomes part of how you move through a space. Whether you are walking into a room, passing through a corridor, or glancing back as you leave, time is always within sight. It feels less like an object placed on a wall and more like something integrated into the rhythm of the room.

The functional decisions are just as thoughtful. The clock runs on two AA batteries, which means there is no need for wiring or complicated installation. It hangs on a bracket and can be easily lifted off when the batteries need to be changed. It is the kind of detail that you might not notice immediately, but it makes living with the product feel effortless.

Visually, the Perch clock embraces minimalism in a way that feels warm rather than clinical. It comes in three colors, allowing it to blend into different interiors while still holding its own presence. The design is clean and restrained, making it suitable for contemporary homes, yet it carries a quiet reference to its past. There is something unmistakably reminiscent of old railway clocks, those objects that once defined shared notions of time and movement.

That sense of nostalgia is part of its charm. It brings a subtle character into a space without feeling overly decorative. It introduces depth to a wall, quite literally, and creates a small moment of curiosity. Guests notice it. People interact with it differently. It becomes a conversation piece without trying too hard.

What makes this product particularly compelling is how it challenges a default assumption. We have grown used to thinking of wall clocks as flat, one-directional objects. This design questions the norm and reminds us that even the most familiar objects can be reimagined.

The response so far reflects this shift in perspective. The first batch sold out quickly, suggesting that people are ready for products that feel both nostalgic and new at the same time. Goofball is currently preparing the second batch, expected to be available in the coming weeks.

In the end, this clock is more than just a timekeeping device. It is a small but meaningful intervention in how we experience space. It takes something we already know, brings back its forgotten domestic presence, and gives it a contemporary voice. It does not just sit on a wall. It changes how the wall and the room around it are perceived.

The post A Double-Sided Clock That Turns Walls into Living Moments of Time first appeared on Yanko Design.