Category: Urwerk

REVIEW – URWERK UR-T8, The Transformer

UR for URWERK. T for Transformer. 8 for the motion of this reversible case. Add 20 for the 20th anniversary of the brand, and you’ll have the URWERK UR-T8, a watch that is just the concentrate of everything Martin Frei and Felix Baumgartner have created so far, everything they tried to express in their watches since 1997, everything they experienced in terms of style and way to indicate the time. The UR-T8 is all of that. It’s bold, it’s futuristic, it’s provocative, it’s highly unusual… It’s everything why we love URWERK, and more than that. See, we love it… but here is why.

9 years ago

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. …

9 years ago

Xavier Markl’s Top 10 of the SIHH 2017

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…

9 years ago

Urwerk Celebrates 20th Anniversary With UR-T8

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?

9 years ago

SIHH 2017 – URWERK UR-T8, The New Concept For The 20th Anniversary

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.

9 years ago

Christmas Shopping Guide – The Best Of Indie Watchmaking Of 2016

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.

9 years ago

“The Monochrome Video Week” – URWERK, Celebrating 20 Years of Visionary Watchmaking

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.

9 years ago