Prague Metronome, Prague

The Prague Metronome is Vratislav Karel Novák’s kinetic sculpture, known by its maker as Time Machine. It rises from the surviving pedestal of Prague’s demolished Stalin Monument, turning a loaded remnant into an image of time’s onward pressure. Commissioned for the General Czechoslovak Exhibition, it arrived by helicopter when doubts about the pedestal ruled out ordinary lifting equipment.

That dramatic arrival came on the fifteenth of May, nineteen ninety-one, and the installation was meant to vanish after the exhibition. Instead, the huge steel mechanism stayed. Its swinging arm has even carried public messages: ahead of the Czech vote on joining the European Union, it travelled between “No” and “Yes.”

Notice the long pendulum cutting its steady arc above the terrace. Below, Stalin Letná brings concerts, films, and electronic music into the old monument’s undercroft.