The Blackbird Begets the Hammerhead

Even the company name might sound unfamiliar to many who think themselves abreast of the modern watchmaking world. Urwerk. A Geneva company which speaks not in gears, trains, and hands--but in carousels, satellites, and transporters.

One look at their wristwatches and--if you don’t already know them--you will definitely not forget them. Their pieces look like nothing else you’ve seen on a wrist. But that is exactly their point. The company Urwerk SA was launched just ten years ago by two brothers and a friend with one principal idea, “to push the boundaries of haute Horlogerie ever further.” Looking at their offerings, one may be inclined to say they pushed one bridge too far.

Yet they are thriving, without any hint so far of going mainstream in their designs or their processes. They stay true to their aim and, indeed, to their name. The slowmoving pieces you see at work in their watches should put you in mind of the slow-moving shadows cast by the sun dials of a 6,000 year old city named Ur. The Urwerk group tell us that these obelisks molded our perceptions of time centuries ago, and that they intend to continue to do so.

Their latest launch does just this. The Urwerk 201 takes their groundbreaking 103 models and shaves off a bit, making it even harder to tear your eyes away. The crossshaped carousel that used to move the four revolving discs which displayed the hours has been replaced with a three-armed piece. The four dish-shaped disks that were responsible for displaying three of the twelve hour indications have been replaced by three satellites that each display four hour indications by rotating on their central hub. The result is a watch face that looks more openly mechanical and industrial in some ways, and which now surprisingly makes last year’s 103 look smooth and sleek by comparison.

Urwerk 101This openness or increasing open-facedness is a trend from Urwerk’s day one, or rather model 101. Launched in 1997 with the independent watchmaker’s group AHCI, the 101 (gold) and 102 (steel) had round cases with one half-circle window that had the hour moving across the visual panorama and changing accordingly. The 103 models launched in 2003 had orbiting satellites peeking through a still relatively slim window located at the front of the watch and also indicating minutes. It was this watch that really started gaining attention for the watchmaking company and brought about a partnership with the famous jeweler, Harry Winston Fine Timepieces, which produced the revolutionary Opus V the next year.

Urwerk is now most known for their 103.03 models that began in 2005, the even more open-faced models that used a U-shaped window to allow viewing of almost all of the hour-indicating satellite discs as they constantly move around the face. The all-black 103 Blackbird model was launched to much acclaim in 2006, bringing to the fore the level of research and development this small company has committed to in order bring unique timepieces to the public.

Urwerk 103

The 201 is nothing if not unique. The U-shaped window of the Blackbird is replaced by an even more expansive and T-shaped piece that fully shows all the orbiting and revolving hour satellites and the telescopic minute hands as they extend and retract to a point to the minute indications at the front of the watch. This telescoping allows precise minute indication as the appropriate hand extends to the scale as needed, but retracts once finished, allowing the watch to be less broad than would otherwise be needed. Looking at it another way, each of those minute hands is called into action for precisely one hour and four times every twenty-four hours as it comes back into play.

This operation every three hours is achieved by what Urwerk calls their “transporters,” one end of which follows a cam plotting the path of the minute indication and the other controlling the precise length of the minute hand extension. These transporters are hidden under the wings between the satellites, and are treated with a special surface lubrication treatment that eliminates the necessity for lubricating oils. Because of the company’s research into lubrication techniques and the metal surface treatments needed to minimize them, practically no oil is necessary in the entire revolving satellite movement.

Urwerk actually has to do much innovation and out of the box thinking to produce its watches. Its complications and moving pieces have to be designed with extremely tight tolerances, yet must also take into account the lubrication and friction properties needed--and still be almost fully exposed to view. A five man team put in three years of work for the 201: twelve months of conception and design, twelve months of machining and testing parts, and twelve months of prototyping and testing mechanisms before final production.

Tolerances within the watch are machined and finished to 1/1000th of a millimeter due to the extreme precision needed for operation. The carousels and satellites are milled, then micro-sandblasted. They are then finished with a fine cashmere brush, and then processed with a PE-CVD treatment called “Blaktop” that hardens, colors, and lowers the coefficient of friction. The back of the carousel is satiné, a process which leaves a distinctive light matt finish without removing material which could affect tolerances. The 90 degree edges of the satellites are beveled using a diamanté process for mirror finish angles.

The telescopic minute hands brought along their own design challenges. They extend to a maximum length of 4.8mm to make reading easier, and retract to a minimum length of 1.8mm when not in use. The minute scale is broken down into the 15-minute starting and ending segments which have a length of 8.3mm each, and the straight 30-minute segment which is 16.6mm. The telescoping is enabled by a tiny spring located inside the hand which needs to be as uniform in elasticity as possible. Uniform elasticity is achieved by spring length, but the small spaces involved limited this for standard springs, so Urwerk had to make the spring filament of a very fine diameter in order to lengthen the spring itself. A human hair is around 100 microns, and the springs used here are an amazing 70 microns or 0.07mm.

All this work and more goes into presenting the remarkable mechanicals as openly as possible, and obviously as cleanly with so little lubrication. The result is the stark yet enthralling face of the watch as it sits on your wrist. In spite of the unusual process required to tell time, the 201 is surprisingly clear once you get used to it; even more clear than the four-disc system of the previous Urwerk models. The hour indication is unmistakable, with the satellites sitting at a tilt of 85 degrees so the wearer doesn’t have to tilt his hand. The minute hand follows a clockwise movement, with the telescopic extension making things very clear as well. The only other things on the watch face are the indicator for the 50-hour power reserve on the left and a day/night indicator on the right. The crown is at the top of the watch in what would normally be the 12 o’clock position. This primacy of position may also indicate something else unusual to many potential consumers; the Urwerk is a manual.

The back of the watch is no less unusual than the front. Urwerk’s watchbacks are called their Control Boards. The 201’s Control Board, befitting the ingenuity of the watch mechanism itself, also has its own original features. Inspired by the sports car gauges, the 201 has an “oil change” indicator. Even though the mechanism has minimized the use of liquid lubrication, it still needs some service and has that scheduled every three years. The owner will be informed of this as the “oil change” indicator dial turns from white to red.

The Control Board also has an odometer of sorts, what Urwerk proudly calls the world’s first horological odometer. A linear indicator tells you how long the watch has been operating by moving once every six years, with more exact measurement using the round dial of the “oil change” indicator. Both of these systems operate without taking any power from the mainspring; rather, they are operated directly from the winding of the crown. This means there is no effect on precision, service life, or power reserve.

Another important feature of the Control Board is the Fine Tuning Screw which allows the user to easily and precisely regulate the timing of the watch.

Watchmaker Felix Baumgartner and designer Martin Frei have once again taken a large step in the horological world. Quite appropriate in the tenth anniversary year of when they, along with Felix’s brother Thomas, created Urwerk itself. The passion and dedication that combined a decade ago is, in many ways, only barely beginning to blossom. The Urwerk pieces are creating a place for themselves in enthusiast’s hearts and minds, and making those hearts race and those minds reassess the concept of how we view and mark time.