The very landscape exudes a special aroma. There’s not much sense of the romantic Alps to be felt in Vallée de Joux in the Jura in Switzerland, even if the meadows in late summer still glow in lavish green and Lac de Joux glitters temptingly in the sun, once you’ve wound your way down the seemingly endless switchbacks and arrived in the valley, that is. Rough cliffs, beautiful grass that searches out the light through the hard covering of soil, and the small window openings in the squat houses intimate that this valley high up in the mountains is a rough place, over one thousand meters up, where winters are cold and long.
Possibly it’s this mixture of remoteness and tranquility that is the key to the craft of the watchmaker, which requires such skill, precision and a special sense for the refined and the filigree and why it developed here to the ultimate of standards.
As early as the 18th century, watchmaking emerged (especially in the long winter months) as a welcome source of income for the inhabitants of the valley. What started with people working at home carefully crafting watch parts led down through the years to the first watchmaking companies arising. To this day, in Vallée de Joux not only watches are made by hand but also ingenious, refined timekeepers with quite marvelous mechanical parts. Especially glorious examples are to be found at Audemars Piguet, founded in 1875 and still owned by the family that established the company.
Silence prevails in the world of watchmakers. It is an introverted place, a cosmos of its very own. While the finished product may be so very impressive, a peek behind the scenes at all the tiny parts that go to make up such a miraculous piece of machinery leaves you quite enthralled by what you see. Studying all the cogs and drive elements, all the springs, the gears made using gemstones, all the refined hands and numerals, you will be surprised to note that at times they resemble entire buildings, if not even cities from the land of the Lilliputians. And who knows, perhaps watchmakers are the construction aces devising an architecture of time.
Photos © Robert Volhard, Stylepark (left), Audemars Piguet (right)
There are clockworks that at first glance spark connotations of walled-in miniature towns: Individual parts on different levels constitute small quarters that are linked to one another by bridges and springy bars to form an organism that swings in itself. And if you get the chance to take a peek at the housing through the watchmaker’s ocular, you are swiftly convinced that you have discovered a whole new world of its own.
Photos © Robert Volhard, Stylepark
Every single component is handcrafted. Working on the basis of a preliminary cut, the watchmaker produces the individual pieces, including their delicate curvatures and edges. Though state-of-the-art measuring technology is used to achieve the required level of precision, an experienced watchmaker will simply know each individual curvature and have an infallible feel for the right proportions. It takes many years of training before a watchmaker has the necessary know-how to attempt more complex systems. The crowning glory: mastering a “grand complication” – a clockwork that in addition to the ordinary mechanism indicating hours, minutes and seconds offers additional functions, including for example repetition, calendar, striking mechanism, moon dial, and astrolabe.
Photos © Robert Volhard, Stylepark (left), Audemars Piguet (right)
The rigorous but highly sculptural grid embellishing the “Royal Oak’s” clock face is not dissimilar to the urban layouts of Baroque cities, such as Mannheim, which has been divided into squares. And what appears to be an embossing to the naked eye has in fact been milled from the material, with delicate circular patterns forming on the surface, as a look through the watchmaker’s magnifying glass readily reveals.
Photos © Robert Volhard, Stylepark
The complex watch mechanism is powered by a delicate spring steel strip. Wound into a coil, this mainspring is located in the barrel – the heart of the watch. And even if the spring often tends to be invisible, it is nonetheless firmly linked to the person winding the watch by twisting the crown.
Photos © Robert Volhard, Stylepark (left), Audemars Piguet (right)
Compared to the amazingly delicate mechanism it contains and protects, the watch housing comes across as extremely robust indeed. Comparisons with a curtain wall façade readily spring to mind – a structure encasing the internal architecture of the watch. And, as is the case with a building, the shell’s design likewise conveys an “image” that reveals the character of the watch. In the case of the “Royal Oak” this image is resilience, while other models, for example “Millenary”, tend to exude a sense of cultivated playfulness.
Photos © Robert Volhard, Stylepark
If you go up into the attic of the oldest building at Audemars Piguet you will come across the very items you would expect to find in a manufactory: treasures that have written history. The air is tinged with smell of the wooden cupboards and workbenches, and the solemn silence that fills the room makes you lower your voice as soon as you enter. The floorboards creak with every step and you invariably slow down in the face of the prevailing order, which you greet with utmost reverence. Stored in these rooms are the spare parts of the old models, some of which were made more than 100 years ago. And if necessary, these ancient treasures are repaired and restored here on the premises. Suddenly you find yourself imagining standing in a watchmaker’s workshop of the kind that existed in the early days of Audemars Piguet.
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