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.
Yesterday, we started to look at the best watches created by independent watchmakers in 2018, with more “classical” watches (if ever the indie scene could be labelled classical). Today, in the second part of this guide, we move to the most creative, daring, highly technical of them all. Sci-fi designs, unusual displays of the time, […]
It is not every day that URWERK presents a brand new piece – not an adaptation of an existing piece, but something truly different and unique. So when URWERK announces something new, we’re always excited to see the result of many years of development… And its latest baby does not disappoint. Bold and ultra-modern, as a URWERK should be, the new creation gets rid of the signature wandering hours indication to restore another iconic display: linear retrograde minutes. Meet the URWERK UR-111C, the direct descendant of the UR-CC1 King Cobra and a watch that brings many, many cool details and mechanical innovations.
Launched to coincide with Urwerk’s twentieth anniversary in 2017, the UR-105 CT Streamliner is a celebration of the city that put the wind in Urwerk’s sails: New York. Three versions of the UR-105 CT are in circulation today, each one designed to capture a New York minute. According to co-founder and designer Martin Frei, the titanium and polished steel model is “like New York City in broad daylight, bright and shiny” while the Kryptonite model evokes a Gotham City atmosphere emitting its green lume in the dark. The most stealth interpretation of the three Streamliners is this titanium and black PVD-coated steel version, something the Dark Knight might have worn on his vigilante crusade to eradicate evil from Gotham City, New York’s fictional alter-ego in Batman movies and comics.
At URWERK, there are recurring themes. The first and main one is that unique display, based on the satellite wandering-hours indication, which has defined most of the brand’s watches for now over 20 years. Another one is the combination of black case and bright coloured indexes. With the brand’s latest creation, the URWERK UR-105 CT Kryptonite (a variation around an already existing watch, the Streamliner), Luminosity is at centre stage.
Following the intense teamwork and understanding that developed between Laurent Ferrier and Urwerk’s dynamic duo – Martin Frei and Felix Baumgartner – to create the Arpal One timepiece for the Only Watch Auction of 2017, the sale of the watch left them with an empty nest syndrome. To counter the blues they were experiencing, they decided to go for an encore and have created four signed watches named LR-UR 2, which, like the Arpal One, will “be sold for the benefit of medical research”. While the shape of the case and the movement are the same as the Arpal 1, the material of the case and finishes are light years apart. The only problem with these four watches is that their parents don’t want to give them a name because they “merely represent the lap of honour of an outstanding team.”