Barometers Realm

What we see here is not a serially produced instrument, but an unusual experimental barometer. This piece was created in the mid-20th century by an unknown maker, using a Soviet aviation altimeter manufactured in 1941 as its foundation. A military instrument originally designed to measure altitude was reinterpreted and transformed into a tabletop barometer — with a new scale, a new logic of indication, and an unexpectedly refined sense of form. The aviation mechanism was preserved, yet subordinated to a different task: observing the variability of weather and the flow of everyday life. In this process, the strictly military character of the instrument acquired an unexpected poetic dimension.

This is a one-off conversion, executed either by an exceptionally skilled individual craftsman or — more plausibly — within a repair-mechanical workshop or production unit associated with aviation maintenance or the DOSAAF system. Such an environment would have implied access to lathes and metalworking equipment, non-ferrous metals, and, most importantly, a culture of thoughtful reuse of instruments — not as mere utilitarian repair, but as a deliberate rethinking of their purpose.

The author clearly understood the kinematics of the altimeter and consciously “reversed” the logic of its scale, subjecting the aviation mechanism to a different semantic framework. At the same time, his interest extended well beyond pure function. He was drawn to visual spectacle and optical effect, which manifested itself in the complex, multilayered construction of the dial and in the creation of a kind of “three-dimensional showcase,” where text, scale, and indicators operate in space rather than on a flat plane. Equally telling is the maker’s desire to give the instrument an emphatically “expensive,” almost bourgeois appearance — perhaps ironic, perhaps entirely serious. This aspiration is evident in the use of brass and copper for decorative and structural elements, in the rejection of the austere utilitarianism of the aviation case, and in the carefully executed polished finish of the wooden base. As a result, the military instrument not only shed its original severity, but acquired the qualities of an interior object — fanciful, slightly theatrical, and remarkably confident in its new role.

The body of the instrument consists of two clearly distinguishable yet stylistically unified parts: the metal cylinder of the aviation altimeter and a wooden base made specifically for this piece. The base has a stepped, multilayered construction reminiscent of a small pedestal or architectural plinth. Its form gradually widens toward the bottom, creating a sense of stability and visual completeness. The wood is finished with a polished coating of pronounced gloss, close in character to a French polish: the surface is deep and saturated, with soft light reflections. In certain areas, decorative copper inlays are incorporated into the base, accentuating the horizontal lines of the steps and reinforcing the overall impression of a “cabinet” object, almost salon-like in character.

To achieve stylistic unity between the base and the metal case of the altimeter, the maker adopted an unusual solution: the cylindrical body of the instrument was completely covered with a thin laminating material matching the color and texture of the wood. As a result, the metal foundation visually disappears, creating the illusion of an entirely wooden case. This technique not only unifies the two parts of the instrument into a single whole, but also underscores the deliberate intent to conceal the military origin of the mechanism behind a “civilian” appearance.

The front of the instrument was entirely reimagined. The original retaining glass ring of the altimeter was replaced with a wide brass bezel, newly made and unrelated to the original aviation design. Along the outer edge of the bezel runs a thin decorative copper wire, serving a purely aesthetic function and lending the composition a sense of completeness and visual depth.

The entire optical system of the instrument was also completely replaced. Set into the bezel is a large convex mineral-glass lens. It does more than simply protect the dial: it plays an active optical role, noticeably enlarging the entire scale. In addition, a special magnifying ring made of acrylic (plexiglass) is placed directly over the dial along its perimeter. This ring lies precisely over the textual portion of the scale and produces a distinctive optical effect: the inscriptions appear raised, distorted, and slightly displaced toward the edges, as if they were not located in the same plane as the rest of the surface, but formed a volumetric band. The result is a kind of “three-dimensional showcase,” enhancing the decorative and theatrical qualities of the instrument.

The dial itself is made of cellulose acetate and has a smooth, milky-white surface with softly diffused light. Tiny brass pins are screwed by hand into the plastic, forming the tick marks of the scale and establishing its rhythm. The boundary of the scale is further emphasized by a thin brass ring, carefully set into the surface of the dial. Along the outer edge of the plastic, a strip of technical paper intended for instrument scales has been applied. On this strip, weather terms in Russian are printed. The printing was executed using letterpress, typical of small-batch or departmental typography. The typeface is a transitional sans-serif-to-slab form — a simplified slab serif — close in appearance to Soviet typefaces of the 1930s–1940s, with short serifs and uneven stroke weight.

At the center of the dial is the trend indicator — a key element of the instrument. It takes the form of a round brass disc which, in essence, is a gear engaging with the mechanism originally intended to drive the so-called Kollsman window in an aviation altimeter (altitude setting based on atmospheric pressure). In its new configuration, this disc is rotated by turning a knurled brass nut located at the lower part of the bezel. As an indicator on the surface of the brass disc, a tiny faceted dark-red gemstone is neatly affixed — a garnet (almandine). This mineral, inexpensive and widely available in the Soviet Union, serves here both as a striking visual accent and as a functional marker of the indicator’s position.

The dial completely lacks any numerical scale. The instrument performs not a measuring, but a trend-indicating function: it is intended not for precise determination of atmospheric pressure values, but for observing the direction of change — rising, falling, or stabilizing. At the same time, the mechanism remains fully operational, though it has one important distinction from a traditional aneroid barometer. In a conventional barometer, the pointer moves to the right as pressure increases. Here, owing to the aviation origin of the mechanism, the pointer moves to the right when pressure decreases, since pressure falls with increasing altitude. In accordance with this logic, the textual weather indications on the dial are arranged in reverse order: “clear” is positioned on the left, while “storm” is on the right. The copper pointer moves leftward as atmospheric pressure rises and rightward as it falls. To read the trend correctly, this feature must be kept in mind — a reminder that is, in fact, built into the textual weather scale itself.

The final, almost inconspicuous detail is a black knurled plastic nut located at the top of the body. It carries no active functional load and serves merely as a plug for a technological opening in the altimeter case. Through this opening, if necessary, the position of the indicating pointer along the scale can be adjusted — effectively an analogue of the calibration screw found on traditional aneroid barometers.

Taken as a whole, this instrument represents a rare and coherent example of an individual reinterpretation of military aviation technology into an object of peaceful everyday use. Here, engineering logic, decorative imagination, and careful craftsmanship converge in an unexpectedly harmonious form, transforming a utilitarian mechanism for measuring altitude into an expressive tabletop barometer with its own character and history.