A watch shaped like no other… A display that indicates the time in a unique way… Complications that you won’t find anywhere else… URWERK’s latest creation, the UR-100, takes the unusual spaceship-looking watch and makes it even more unusual. After two inaugural editions in steel or in black-coated steel, followed by a GunMetal model, the […]
Luxury watchmakers have to face turbulent times. The two major trade shows, Watches & Wonders (ex-SIHH) and Baselworld have just announced the cancellation of their 2020 editions amid fears of a possible COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic. With these lost opportunities to meet retailers and the press, watch brands need to handle business that would have got […]
URWERK is known for several signature elements, the first being its bold, futuristic design language. The second has to do with the truly unusual, not to say unique way to display the time, thanks to wandering hours and satellites – a concept introduced on the brand’s first watches. Sometimes though, the two men behind URWERK, […]
Robert Downey Jr., a.k.a. Iron Man on silver screens, is well known for being a watch aficionado – in particular very cool watches from indie watchmakers, including Urwerk, as spotted here. Among these, the UR-111C Black was also spotted on his wrist at the premieres of Marvel’s Avengers Endgame in New York and Los Angeles. […]
There’s one thing certain about Urwerk… It is a brand like no other. Whether we talk about design, displays or complications, Frei and Baumgartner (the two founders) clearly live on another planet. Even in the small circle of independent watchmakers, they are a breed apart… but that’s what makes them and their creations so fascinating. […]
For the 2017 edition of Only Watch, Urwerk surprised collectors with a unique and clearly unusual collaboration piece made with the most classic of independent watchmakers: Laurent Ferrier (more details here). The result was impressively bold and subtle at the same time. For the 2019 edition of the charity auction, Urwerk again teams up with […]
URWERK can’t leave anyone indifferent. Since making its debut in the 1990s, the indie brand created by Martin Frei and Felix Baumgartner stands out with its radical, futuristic designs and its original way to portray time. The idea of wandering hours, like for a sundial, is omnipresent. The stage was set from the very beginning with the creation of the UR101/102 (we will come back on these watches later) displaying time on an arc. Then came the satellite time indication with a host of creative and complex iterations… satellites, cams, transporters, rotating cubes, telescopic hands, retrograde indications mark off the Urwerk time. The story continues with the new URWERK UR-100 SpaceTime.
The 2018 launch of Urwerk’s UR-111C generated quite a bit of buzz among the watch community. A dissident from the signature wandering hours complication, the UR-111C flaunted jumping hours, linear retrograde minutes, a novel roller crown, and optical fibre-augmented seconds all the while remaining faithful to Urwerk’s Sci-Fi design ethos. Making its debut in two […]
Our 2018 buying guides have to come to an end. After the top 10 watches below EUR 2,000, followed by 10 watches between EUR 2,000 and 5,000, our 10 prefered watches between EUR 5,000 to EUR 10,000, and finally out top picks between EUR 10,000 and EUR 25,000, it is now time to look at the best of the best, when money doesn’t matter anymore: the best watches of 2018 in the high-end category, all priced above EUR 25,000. Complications, Haute-Horlogerie movements, hand-made decorations… what dreams are made of!
As part of the brand’s ‘Special Projects’ line, the UR-111C is Urwerk at its best, a mature watch that soars with mechanical ingenuity and a design ethos straight out of Blade Runner. Although it does not bear the hallmark satellite hour hands we have come to associate with the brand, the UR-111C is packed with imaginative displays (jumping hours, linear retrograde minutes, optical fibre-augmented seconds) and a look and feel that is 100% Urwerk.