- koimaster
- Founder
- Posts: 42484
- Joined: December 16th 2009, 11:00pm
- Location: Oregon, Thanks for visiting! Now go back home!
- Contact:
URWERK UR-100 SpaceTime
I was reading Gary’s piece in Quill & Pad as I was writing this post about URWERK’s latest release. He mentions, amongst other things, the topic of patronage of independent brands for him as a collector, as well as their broader importance. Supporting a brand like URWERK and other small watchmakers and brands is akin to the traditional idea of ‘art patronage’ in many ways, which means that the people behind them, the people with their names on the dials, have an added importance. But supporting them as a customer is not just believing in the people, but also an investment in some cases, in R&D work that is unlikely to happen in a big brand. It would be a much poorer watch world without such brand pushing technical and design boundaries.
For Felix Baumgartner, as is the case for many watchmakers who have a family history that touches clockmaking or watchmaking and/ or who have worked in restoration, the timepieces of the past can and do, inform the way that they approach their own watchmaking. Sometimes this is self evident and sometimes, less so.
The new UR-100 is quintessentially URWERK, but its origins like in a Gustav Sandoz pendulum regulator clock that was given to Felix by his father Geri Baumgartner, and about which you can read in this piece by Ian Skellern. The clock, Sandoz clock, exhibited at the 1892 Paris and 1893 Chicago fairs and a (gold and bronze respectively) medalist at both, measures not time but the distance of the Earth’s rotation at the equator.
https://horologium.com.au/2019/09/13/ne ... spacetime/
For Felix Baumgartner, as is the case for many watchmakers who have a family history that touches clockmaking or watchmaking and/ or who have worked in restoration, the timepieces of the past can and do, inform the way that they approach their own watchmaking. Sometimes this is self evident and sometimes, less so.
The new UR-100 is quintessentially URWERK, but its origins like in a Gustav Sandoz pendulum regulator clock that was given to Felix by his father Geri Baumgartner, and about which you can read in this piece by Ian Skellern. The clock, Sandoz clock, exhibited at the 1892 Paris and 1893 Chicago fairs and a (gold and bronze respectively) medalist at both, measures not time but the distance of the Earth’s rotation at the equator.
https://horologium.com.au/2019/09/13/ne ... spacetime/

1946-2006
“Your heart was warm and happy
With the lilt of Irish laughter
Every day and in every way
Now forever and ever after."