Review: Urwerk UR-T8
URWERK celebrates its 20th birthday with a new watch. The UR-T8. Cased in Titanium, the watch is sized slightly larger than the previous cases, and with a new reversible case mechanism. …
URWERK celebrates its 20th birthday with a new watch. The UR-T8. Cased in Titanium, the watch is sized slightly larger than the previous cases, and with a new reversible case mechanism. …
The SIHH 2017 was my 19th attendance to the Geneva-based fair. What a pleasure to tour the inescapable Geneva Haute Horlogerie rendez-vous, which has been great vintage indeed! Here’s my top ten favorite watches, after over 2,000 pictures shot. These are presented without specific order, focusing on gents watches (no mention therefore of the magnificent jeweled watches from Cartier, Piaget or Van Cleef and Arpels). A tough choice but as we had to pick ten, here we go with my personal highlights…
By Martin Green
Time flies when having fun! That certainly goes for Urwerk, who celebrates this year its 20th anniversary and does so with the UR-T8 which they launched at the SIHH. The brand has come a long way in those twenty years, creating watches like the UR-103, UR-1001 and the EMC Time-Hunter. A signature feature of many of them are of course the three cone shaped discs indicating both the hour as well as the minutes, brought together by a stroke of genius. Of course, this complication is also present in the UR-T8, because what would a 20th-anniversary piece be without it?
It’s no exaggeration to say that here at Quill & Pad we are big fans of the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso. And now Urwerk introduces its own, very robust version of a reversible watch: the UR-T8 “Transformer.”
As you might know, this year is the 20th anniversary of a rather unique and disruptive brand named URWERK. As we already showed to you in a dedicated movie, this independent watchmakers started with their first watch at Baselworld 1997, as they were still almost kids. However, even if they just turned 20, don’t believe that Frei & Baumgartner are now old men who are sleeping behind their desks… And as proof of the strong vitality and creativity of URWERK, here is their latest creation, the impressive URWERK UR-T8, which renew the concept of satellite complication and of traditional case.
The Time Aeon Foundation, driver of the Le Garde Temps, Naissance d’une Montre project, will present its second project at the 2017 edition of SIHH, which involves a collaboration with the recently announced boutique brand Oscillon.
After showing you our selection for the best sports and dive watches, after the 5 best chronographs, the best dress watches or the best of the ultra-complicated watches, it is now time to end these guides with what certainly is our most preferred category, the one that properly creates sparkles in the eyes of our team: the best of “indie watchmaking” of 2016. Just before Christmas, we bring you the ultra-bold, the ultra-complex, the ultra-everything. No compromises, no justification of price, no industrial matters. Here, it’s all about dream, passion, creativity and innovation. Here are our 5 best watches from independent watchmakers introduced in 2016.
I know of only three watchmakers making watches by hand today: one is Michel Boulanger for Naissance d’une Montre. The other two are Dominique Buser and Cyrano Devanthey, who are hand-making watches they call l’Instant de Vérité under the umbrella of their own micro brand Oscillon. And what a watch this is!
1997: Martin Frei and Felix Baumgartner launch Urwerk and their first model, the UR 101, freely inspired by the 17th century Campanus brothers’ night clock (one of the things you might not know about URWERK). 2016: the brand will soon celebrate its 20th anniversary. 20 year of unchained creations, of unusual display of the time, of bold and creative watchmaking, with however a great respect to traditions and haute-horlogerie (and again something that you might not know about the brand). Today is thus the perfect moment for us to sit down with Felix Baumgartner, co-founder of URWERK, and to see how this bold and unchained independent watchmaker started, how they found inspiration for their first creations and how the brand evolved over the years to become the great brand we know today.
Starting today is the “Monochrome Video Week“, meaning that for the coming five days we will be showing recent, unpublished videos that we shot at location in Villeret, Neuchâtel and Geneva. On Friday we’ll show you some of our best-viewed videos, also filmed on location in Glashütte (Germany), and in Switzerland in Biel, Geneva and Villeret. Let’s make clear that we’re not showing you corporate videos of some of our favourite watches brands, nope, these are movies filmed in our own style, by our own crew, and of subject of our own choice. So, instead of showing you photos of watches or a visual description of a manufacture visit, we’re showing you everything in the best possible way; there’s no better ‘tool’ than movies to explore the fascinating world of fine watchmaking. Please sit down, get a big bag of popcorn… here’s what we have lined up for you for the “Monochrome Video Week“