Masters of Contemporary Watchmaking

Illuminates the craftsmanship and ingenuity of contemporary craft watchmaking. The advent of quartz technology had a huge effect on traditional watchmaking. In Switzerland, in the 1970s, tens of thousands lost their jobs in the watch industry, and for a time it looked as if a 500-year-long tradition of skills would be lost forever. Today, against the odds, artist craftsmen have triumphantly brought about the renaissance of the mechanical handmade watch. The aesthetic agenda is being set by a group of remarkable independents. This book tells their story, and it is beautifully illustrated with hundreds of examples of their virtuoso work. Here is George Daniels, who systematically set out to surpass the skills of the most celebrated watchmaker of all time, Abraham Louis Breguet. Daniels, the world’s most renowned watchmaker, has even improved upon those eighteenth-century skills by inventing a lever escapement requiring no lubrication. Svend Andersen (Denmark), Vincent Calabrese (Italy), Alain Silberstein and Vianney Halter (France), Aniceto Jiménez Pita (Spain), Marco Lang (Germany), Philippe Dufour, Antoine Preziuso, and Franck Muller (Switzerland), and Roger Smith (England) are among the other participants. In addition to the major interviews, other craftsmen and workshops from Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Holland, Finland, Ireland, and Hungary are introduced and illustrated. 400 color, 30 b&w illustrations