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A Brief History of Time

"THE STORY OF clocks is the story of time," says Camel Halim, founder of the

Halim Time & Glass Museum in Evanston, IlI. "And time has an enormous history. All of our modern life is based on knowing the time, and our modern industry is based on the horology industry. This is what fascinates me." Halim's fascination began when he was a child in Egypt and took apart the family's alarm clock to see how it worked,

but the seed of the collecting passion was planted shortly after he and his wife, Hoda, emigrated to the U.S., when she picked up a classic American schoolhouse clock for $40. At the time, amassing an unparalleled cache of clocks wasn't at the top of the Halims' agenda; they were more focused on building a real estate business in the Chicago area. But before long, they had acquired a musical grandfather

clock and then an English japanned clock. "Collectors don't intend to be collectors,

says Halim. "It just happens over time. You buy one clock and then you buy another.

It's like designing a puzzle and then filling it in."

Link: Read the full article here Art & Antiques Magazine.

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Clock and stained glass museum opens in Evanston

The Halim Time & Glass Museum opens in Evanston today as what its founder believes is the world's first museum dedicated solely to clocks and stained glass. It's been an 11-year labor of love for hobbyist Cameel Halim, along with his wife, Hoda, and three daughters. 

"We believe that when items get to this level, you don't own it—you just keep it for a while," says Halim. "Most of our clocks are 300 years old; they're made in the 1700s. They're such important items. They're not meant to look at yourself, you're meant to share it with the public."

The museum features 1,100 clocks from around the globe and 80 stained glass pieces—some as tall as 25 feet—in a five-story building at 1560 Oak Street in Evanston.

Link: Read the full article at chicagobusiness.com

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OPENING: Stained glass and timepieces an unlikely pairing in new Chicago-area museum

Just outside Chicago, a brand-new museum opening today will showcase early-20th-century American stained-glass alongside a collection of international timepieces. The Halim Time & Glass Museum in Evanston, Illinois, the newest museum to spring up in the state, brings together stained glass by Tiffany and others with grandfather clocks, wrist-watches, and other time-keeping devices collected from around the world. The museum brings together twin passions of real-estate investor and Egyptian immigrant Cameel Halim, who began building his collection of stained glass pieces over the last 20 years.

Link: Read the full article at UrbanGlass.com

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Time and Glass Museum opens today

The Halim Time and Glass Museum opens its doors to the public this morning in Evanston after an 11-year development process.

Founder Cameel Halim and his wife Hoda started collecting the objects now on display in the museum three decades ago, after emigrating to the U.S. from Egypt.

Link: Read the full article at EvanstonNow.com

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Evanston museum showcases stained glass and time pieces

EVANSTON, Ill. (WLS) -- 

Tucked away on a quiet Evanston street, the Halim Time & Glass Museum surrounds visitors with beauty.

Inside, dozens of stained glass panes glow. Close enough to touch, these windows from the turn of the 20th Century evoke spirituality and peace.

With work from artists like La Farge and Tiffany, museum guides quickly point out the craftsmanship: textured designs with Tiffany's mottled glass, copper foil to reflect a landscape's fluidity, and La Farge's confetti glass too.

In an exhibit devoted to time-keeping, that's the easiest thing to lose track of with more than a 1,000 examples of artistic expression and innovation to explore.

 

 

Link: Read the full article at abc7chicago.com

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Collector Opens Clock And Stained Glass Museum In Evanston

CHICAGO (CBS) — A new museum has opened in Evanston, showcasing hundreds of antique clocks and dozens of 19th century stained glass windows. 

The Halim Time and Glass Museum is the culmination of 30 years of collecting by real estate developer Cameel Halim and his wife. 

Halim said he and his wife began collecting clocks and other kinds of timepieces 30 years ago. Their five-story museum features 1,100 timepieces from around the world, some dating back to the 1600s.

Link: Read the full article at chicago.cbslocal.com

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A Collector’s Dream: Creating Your Own Museum as a Legacy

Paintings, sculptures, gems, cars, items made perfectly by a single craftsman — if you have the collector’s gene, these are the kinds of things you must own. Add wealth to fuel that desire, and your collection is likely to grow. But then what do you do with it?

If you can’t bear the thought of a life’s acquisitions being sold off — or, at best, going to a museum to be displayed only occasionally — the urge may be to open a museum of your own.

Link: Read the full article at nytimes.com

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Local museum opens with antique clocks, floor-to-ceiling stained glass

Walking into the Halim Time and Glass Museum is like taking a step back in time through a maze of winding corridors lined with antiques.

The new museum, which sits at 1560 Oak Ave. and opened Sept. 26, is filled with clocks and stained glass windows from all over the world. The pieces come from the private collection of Cameel Halim, a Wilmette-based real estate investor from Egypt who began collecting historical items with his wife, Hoda, more than 20 years ago.

 

Link: Read the full article at dailynorthwestern.com

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New Museum Showcases Massive Collection of Stained Glass, Rare Clocks

It is not every day that a new museum opens in the Chicago area. The latest is both dazzling and unusual.

The Halim Time and Glass Museum pairs the twin passions of one family’s collection: a love of 19th century stained glass, and the history of clocks.

Chicago Tonight found a window of time to visit during the museum’s opening week. 

Link: Read the full article at wttw.com

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Family ready to share amazing collection of time pieces

EVANSTON, Ill. -- If you could collect anything in the world, what would it be? Bottle caps? Coins? Handbags? How about clocks?

One suburban man and his family are passionate about time and starting next week they want you to make time to see their personally curated collection.  There are so many pieces they

decided to build a museum to house and display them.

It's called the Halim Time and Glass Museum. It's located in Evanston and houses over 1100 time pieces and over 70 stained glass pieces of art. The building is five stories tall and is filled with history, art and the study of time.

Link: Read the full article at WGNTV.com

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2017 Design Evanston Awards - Interior Design 

Through our Design Evanston Awards, Design Evanston identifies significant aesthetic and functional improvements in the Evanston community and recognizes them with our Design Evanston Awards. Specifically designed not to be self-serving for design professionals, the awards are presented to owners responsible for the design excellence of local projects. 

 

The project concept was to create a museum interior capable of beautifully displaying a world class collection of stained glass windows from the American masters and timepieces fromthe17th-20th centuries. All of the light boxes used to ensure the perfect display of the enormous stained glass windows were designed and manufactured in-house. 

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Plenty of Time on His Hands

What makes Cameel Halim tick?  You can see for yourself when his clock collection-most pre-dating 1800 - goes on display in Evanston.

Read the Article

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Glass Artist, Sample Series preserve history

Works from Gilbertson's Stained Glass of Lake Geneva, Wis., will be featured at an Evanston museum expected to open within the next year.

Read the Article

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Magnificent Obsession Morphs Into a Stained-Glass Museum

EVANSTON, Ill. — Passageways lined in stained glass snake through a museum in progress on a quiet side street here, and workers are filling the galleries with iridescent mosaics, opalescent glass vases and ornate clocks that contain tiny mechanical birds and acrobats.  

Read the Article

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A Collector’s Monument to Time: The Halim Time and Glass Museum

Ever since childhood, Illinois-based real estate magnate Cameel Halim has been fascinated by the way things work. “I used to take my alarm clock apart,” he confesses. “Although I never put it back together again.” As an adult, his curiosity led him to amass one of the world’s most impressive collections of timepieces and glasswork. This autumn on 26 September, Halim is unveiling a selection of his holdings with the opening of the Halim Time and Glass Museum in Evanston, Illinois. There, visitors can peruse galleries lined with rare automatons and pocket watches, plus an array of 18th-century Chinese clocks.

“No place in the world can come close to us outside the Forbidden City’s museum,” says Halim, referring to the remarkable mechanical timepiece collection in Beijing’s Palace Museum. Personally designed by Halim, his wife and three daughters, the displays include video monitors playing each timepiece in motion.

Link: Read the full article at Sothebys.com

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