THE MILLENNIUM WATCH BOOK
TOURBILLONS EVERYTHING ESSENTIAL ON THE TOURBILLON SINCE 2000
GMT PUBLISHING
4
IMPRESSUM
THE MILLENNIUM WATCH BOOK – TOURBILLONS Editorial committee: Brice Lechevalier Joy Corthésy Suzanne Wong David Chokron Olivier Müller Sébastien Dordor Layout: ETC Advertising & Design SARL (www.etcdesign.ch) Lithography: Images 3 (www.images3.ch) Translation: David & Naomi Buick (EN), Marie Le Berre (FR) Editing: Susan Jacquet, Marie Le Berre, Brice Lechevalier, Joy Corthésy, Sébastien Dordor Project coordination: Idiome Agency (www.idiomeagency.com) Cover: Breguet Printed by MUSUMECI S.p.A a socio unico (www.musumecispa.it) © Copyright GMT Publishing For more information on The Millennium Watch Book Collection, visit www.the-watch-book.com and follow us on Instagram @themillenniumwatchbook Printing limited to 4,000 copies ISBN: 978-2-8399-3387-2
INTRODUCTION
FROM EVERY ANGLE I BRICE LECHEVALIER, EDITOR
t was in the middle of winter, while I was on my Sunday jog through the countryside around Geneva, that I got the vision for this book. Not just for this one, but for a whole collection through to 2030 – ten volumes at once! Those who’ve already seen the very first The Millennium Watch Book, published in 2020, will find a rather different approach has been taken here. That first volume, released to celebrate the 20th anniversary of GMT Magazine and the WorldTempus website (which belongs to our publishing house), offered an overview of watchmaking in the third millennium in its entirety. At that time, there was no thought of any sequel or series, but on the strength of the highly enthusiastic response to the book by its first readers, and the experience we gained in producing it, the collection was born. The 2020 edition has now become “Volume 0”, thereby making this book, the next in the series, Volume 1. Each year over the next decade will have its own volume and theme – a first in contemporary watchmaking literature. The year 2021 marks the 220th anniversary of the invention of the tourbillon. Over the course of the past two decades, tourbillons have become nothing short of a fine watchmaking phenomenon, so it’s only natural that this year’s The Millennium Watch Book should be wholly devoted to them. We’ve brought our experts together to focus on this especially demanding subject, and they’ve worked hard to present every aspect of tourbillons, constantly striving to distil all the essential information about developments in the field since 2000, alongside a brief but important historical overview. Once again, the authors’ desire to impart knowledge is accompanied by an aesthetic dimension that aims to instil much the same pleasure as that experienced by lovers of fine watches when they see and touch these fantastic timepieces. Our hope is that as a result, readers may even feel a little tourbillon-like themselves, overcoming the adverse effects of gravity and spinning into bliss…
5
6
CONTENTS
CONTENTS
10
THE ANATOMY AND METABOLISM OF THE TOURBILLON
The basic principles behind the tourbillon.
Chronomètrie Ferdinand Berthoud
14
TOURBILLONS: THE WHIRLWIND THAT SIMPLY ISN’T
If you believe that the tourbillon term was coined because of whirlwinds in tornados or hurricanes, then it is time for this myth to be debunked.
Breguet
CONTENTS
16
1800-2000: TWO CENTURIES OF TOURBILLONS The birth and first steps of the mechanism.
30
THE INCREDIBLE RISE TO POWER OF KING TOURBILLON
The role each played, from institutional brands and independent designers, in the tourbillon’s ascent to the throne.
Audemars Piguet
Jaeger-LeCoultre
46
BREGUET: THE ESSENCE OF THE TOURBILLON
Giving credit where credit is due: how the brand has perpetuated its founder’s legacy.
Breguet
7
8
CONTENTS
58
THE HONOURABLE MENTIONS
Unable to be classified, quantified, or labelled – here are the tourbillon watches, their watchmakers and the places you can find them to get a bigger and better understanding of 21st century tourbillons.
Hublot
IWC
64
50 IMPERATIVE TOURBILLONS The editorial committee’s selection of 50 contemporary tourbillons (since 2000) that have contributed most to the development of the concept and its mechanism.
Bulgari
166
TOURBILLIN’ TIMES: PLAYING DEVIL’S ADVOCATE
F.P.Journe
A collector tries to convince another to buy a tourbillon watch even though the latter sees no need for it.
9
CONTENTS
174
Harry Winston
182
TOURBILLON ON AUCTION
THE PATENT SAGA
The patents that should be retained in this field and why.
188
GRAND PRIX D’HORLOGERIE DE GENÈVE
All the watches housing a tourbillon that have received a Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève award since the institutions’ creation in 2001.
The evolution since the year 2000 of the tourbillon market, and the most sought-after models.
MB&F
BY: DAVID CHOKRON
THE ANATOMY AND METABOLISM OF THE TOURBILLON
The tourbillon is both well-known and poorly understood. While all watch-lovers (and plenty of other people) have heard of it and some are capable of offering a definition, very few of them understand its original purpose: taking care of the watch’s heart.
T
he tourbillon is a system designed to compensate for the effects of gravity when a timepiece is vertical by enclosing its regulating organ in a rotating cage. Virtually every single word in such a summary requires an explanation. What is the regulating organ? What has gravity to do with it all? Why does anything need to rotate? And what’s the problem with being vertical? It all comes down to the fact that a mechanical watch movement is a stack of horizontal layers, designed, viewed and assembled horizontally, that actually spends its entire life in an infinite number of spatial positions. And as soon as it leaves the horizontal plane, the behaviour of its essential organs changes. In this instance, the organs in question are the balance wheel and hairspring, the two key components of a mechanical watch. They multiply one hundredfold any disturbance to their ideal performance – which is achieved when they lie flat.
Jaeger-LeCoultre – Duomètre Sphérotourbillon Moon (2015)
12
THE ANATOMY OF THE TOURBILLON
THE HEART Let’s start by looking at the hairspring. This is a flat, thin, lightweight coiled spring attached to the balance and that is constantly coiling and uncoiling. Once it is fully uncoiled, it stops, reverses direction, and then starts its cycle all over again. As it does so, it drives the balance first in one direction, then in the other. Together, they oscillate, thus keeping time. This tempo is marked off by the escapement (the pallet-lever and escape-wheel); together, this assembly forms the regulating organ. The oscillation speed, which must always remain the same, defines the frequency of the movement: for example, this might be 21,600 vibrations per hour. Its regularity is what ensures the running accuracy of the watch. Fractions of a second of difference all add up, turning into several minutes per week if left uncorrected. In short, if the hairspring gets off track, the watch is no longer accurate.
HEART RHYTHM PROBLEMS The difficulty is that the hairspring is constantly changing speed: it stops, starts, accelerates, slows down, runs down, reverses, and then starts the cycle all over again. When it is moving quickly, it is protected by inertia, rather like a truck hitting a road stud: if the vehicle is moving very fast, the bump won’t affect its speed; but if it’s slowing down or stopped, it has less energy and can be disturbed by the smallest of impacts. That’s where gravity comes into play. When the hairspring is horizontal, gravity exerts an even force across its entire surface, so the net effect on its inertia is zero. However, the hairspring becomes vulnerable when vertical. If it’s stationary and needs to start up again, uncoiling upwards, it has to work against gravity and thus accelerates less. When gravity is on its side and it’s uncoiling downwards, it accelerates more. Either way, the frequency becomes irregular, and the watch becomes less accurate. Therein lies the negative influence of gravity: it disturbs the regular movement of the hairspring.
WATCH YOUR BLOOD PRESSURE All of this is combined with a specific difficulty inherent in the balance: friction. The balance is assembled on a shaft – the balance wheel staff – both ends of which sit in jewels. These jewels, set in bridges and/or the movement’s baseplate, hold the moving parts in place. The staff is in constant rotation and each of its tips, or pivots, rubs against a jewel. The latter is both very smooth and very hard, in order to keep friction to a minimum; in addition, it has a recess cut into it to hold a droplet of oil. When horizontal, there is indeed minimum friction, because the pivots touch only a very small area of the jewels – essentially, only the lower one.
Harry Winston – Histoire de Tourbillon 9 (2018)
However, when not horizontal, the pivots rest on a larger portion of the jewels, depending on the position in question, and do so on both sides. This increases friction, which in turn slows down the rotation. The upshot is that as soon as the balance-staff is no longer horizontal, it loses energy, and therefore speed. Once again, gravity results in a lack of accuracy.
CORONARY BYPASS Abraham-Louis Breguet had an insight that led to him filing a patent application in Paris in 1801. Being unable to get rid of gravity, his idea was to bypass it instead. The tourbillon consists in making the hairspring and balance (as well as the escapement, to which they are directly connected) rotate. This assembly encounters gravity in one direction (favourable or unfavourable); then, the hairspring and balance duo moves to a new position, swiftly finding itself in the opposite configuration (unfavourable or favourable). Acceleration at one point in time is offset by deceleration a few seconds later. Rather than building up cumulatively, these errors cancel each other out, as the tourbillon allows the entire regulating organ to rotate. To achieve this, it is built like a merry-go-round, with a lower platform, an upper platform, and pillars connecting the two. The ‘platforms’ in question are fact bridges: these are thin, spindly, and come in an infinite number of shapes. Together they form a cage. The structure is powered directly by the gear train and is propelled by the escape-wheel, which travels along a cogwheel to make the assembly rotate, as though on a rack.
THE ETHICS OF THE CURE
De Bethune
Detractors of the tourbillon claim it is pointless. It was invented for pocket watches, which are always in the worst possible – i.e. vertical – position, whereas on the wrist, the watch naturally takes a certain number of positions that automatically perform the function of the tourbillon. While this argument makes some sense, it overlooks several important details. We are sedentary beings and don’t move our hands all that much either. Besides, our movements don’t guarantee a predictable average. Moreover, tourbillon wristwatches have proved their effectiveness,
13
THE ANATOMY OF THE TOURBILLON
notably in chronometry competitions in the 2000s. The other argument put forward by detractors is that the cage weighs on the escapement that propels it; the escapement itself must therefore also be as light as possible, failing which it will adversely affect the ability of the balance to pick up speed again; furthermore, any additional weight increases friction, the drawbacks of which have already been explained. Virtually the only way of addressing this problem is to reduce the weight of the cage as much as possible. That’s why tourbillons are extremely slim and often made from titanium, which is 40% lighter than steel; they tend to weigh around 0.5 grammes.
DIFFERENT CARE PATHWAYS Contemporary watchmaking has added an incredible number of refinements to this basic technique. Since the tourbillon is a device that works on the basis of averages, it’s possible to play around with the calculations involved; that involves increasing the number of positions the cage finds itself in. This can be achieved by making it rotate faster – the disadvantage being the ensuing sharp rise increase in energy consumption and friction. Alternatively, the positions can be diversified by adding other rotational planes: this is the very definition of a multi-axis tourbillon. In addition to changing the plane of movement, a second axis is created, with a second cage
rotating the first cage. Some use the term double tourbillon, but this can be confusing, as there is only one regulating organ. Triple-axis tourbillons add a third cage, and thus a third axis of rotation. The advantage of these structures is that they set the balance and hairspring moving along a spherical trajectory in many different directions, with a range of rotation speeds depending on the cage in question.
ALTERNATIVE THERAPIES In the original design, the cage is secured by the baseplate on one side and a bridge on the other. In 1920, Alfred Helwig invented a structure that had no upper bridge: the flying tourbillon. This provides a clear view of the tourbillon, improving the spectacular visual effect, albeit at the expense of robustness. Two other variations are also worth a mention here. Both are known as carrousels (also spelt karussels), but they are very different from each other. The first was invented by the Danish watchmaker Bonniksen, who created a cage and escapement that could move at different speeds respectively, with the time being measured by the difference between them. The other carrousel tourbillon consists in making most (or even all) of the movement rotate. One rotation may be completed every 12 or 24 hours; this is much slower than conventional tourbillon speeds but unavoidable, as the weight borne is considerably greater. Whether or not these slow tourbillons are as efficient as the faster ones remains an open question. Either way, these large moving structures are guaranteed to provide a great show.
THE SURGEON’S HANDS All these refinements aside, the most important condition for timekeeping remains the same. Irrespective of whether it is equipped with a tourbillon, a regulating organ will be accurate if it keeps friction and weight to a minimum and the weight-inertia ratio of the balance wheel at a maximum, while taking into account a large number of spatial positions and how they change. The art of timing, long the noblest of them all, remains the basis of any timekeeping device – and the prerequisite for a tourbillon to be capable of enhancing accuracy.
14
TOURBILLONS: THE WHIRLWIND THAT SIMPLY ISN’T
BY: TIMMY TAN
TOURBILLONS THE WHIRLWIND THAT SIMPLY ISN’T
Y
ou will not find the word tourbillon in the trusted Oxford English Dictionary simply because this is a French term. The majority of watch enthusiasts will not bat an eyelid when any article on horology associates the tourbillon mechanism in a timepiece with the word “whirlwind”, that is the direct English translation. Understandably, there is widespread belief that the term was so coined by the inventor of the tourbillon in 1795 because for some, the movement of its rotating mobile carriage may be likened to a whirlwind, described as a column of air that revolves so rapidly that it takes cylindrical or funnel-shaped forms during typhoons.
SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE Having been exposed to horological literature in print and online articles linking the tourbillon with the whirlwind countless times and even right up till today, I was curious as to why Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747 to 1823), the famed creator of the tourbillon regulator, would have named his invention after such violent forces of nature. After all, tourbillon movements do not convey any sense of uncontrollable storms or agitated behaviour. On the contrary, these mechanical marvels have hypnotic, rhythmic and calming effects on my senses. Well, the blunt truth is, we have been hoodwinked into believing this myth thanks to fake news in a certain sense. Perhaps it is more appropriate to blame it on the illusory truth effect – the tendency to believe false information due to repeated exposure coupled with the fact that “whirlwind” is indeed the direct English translation of the French word. Chinese horological buffs will probably not have the wool pulled over their eyes as easily. The Chinese horological term for the tourbillon movement is tuó fēi lún. While it does sound a little like the English word “typhoon” or its actual Chinese equivalent tái fēng, the English translation of fēi lún is “flywheel” or “sprocket wheel”. These certainly do not have any link whatsoever with tornados or typhoons but clearly refer to functional components in a mechanical movement. I attained enlightenment while perusing the highly informative book Breguet: Watchmakers since 1775. As duly noted by author Emmanuel Breguet who is a direct descendant of Abraham-Louis Breguet, the inventor of the tourbillon had “borrowed” the name from astronomy, at a time when such a term was used by 18th century French astronomers and philosophers to describe the planetary system. The word tourbillon refers to a planetary system and to its rotation around a single axis, explains the seventh-generation direct descendant of Breguet.
If you believe that the tourbillon term was coined because of whirlwinds in tornados or hurricanes, then it is time for this myth to be debunked.
INTERESTED IN READING MORE? ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY!
THE MILLENNIUM WATCH BOOK COLLECTION SUMS UP EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT WATCHMAKING SINCE 2000.
F
ollowing this editorial approach to contemporary fine watchmaking, a new volume, on a specific watch category, will be published every year until 2030. These coffee table books are born out of a collective effort to gain a better understanding or to rediscover, the world of watches from 2000 to 2020. Prepare half a linear meter on your bookshelves to welcome this collection that is all about passion!
WHAT READERS SAID:
“The best watch book of our generation” “It’s not just a great book, it’s a piece of art with a lot of precious pictures and technical info inside!!!” “This book is just magnif icent, impressive, substantial, beautiful!!! What amazing working you have done here. Congrats, congrats, congrats!!!”
ALWAYS AT YOUR DISPOSAL!
Mathieu Rotzer mathieu.rotzer@gmtpublishing.com +41793810285
the-watch-book.com