Renowned for its eccentric wristwatches, Urwerk introduces a departure from its traditional repertoire with the SpaceTime Blade clock, a limited edition marvel. Standing tall at 1.7 meters and weighing 20 kilograms, this extraordinary timepiece defies the wearable category, presenting a stunning fusion of craftsmanship and innovation.
Drawing inspiration from medieval clocks mirroring celestial movements, the SpaceTime Blade transcends typical timekeeping. Beyond indicating time and date, it offers insights into Earth’s daily and yearly orbits.
Crafted with meticulous detail, its base resembles a watch crown, forged from bronze using the ancient lost wax casting technique, an art dating back to ancient Greece. This intricate process involves molding wax into intricate designs, later replaced by molten bronze.
Central to the clock’s allure is its handcrafted glass tube housing eight Nixie tubes, reminiscent of vintage technology. Each Nixie tube features steel cathodes forming numerals within a glass bulb filled with neon and argon gases, emitting a reddish-orange glow when electrified. Despite its retro appearance, the display boasts rapid transitions, with the ability to change up to 500 times per second.
However, the intricate assembly of each Nixie bulb, comprising 88 parts, underscores the meticulous craftsmanship behind the SpaceTime Blade’s 1,446 components.
The clock’s standout feature lies in its capability to illustrate the Earth’s rotational and revolutionary movements. With precision, it depicts the distance the Earth traverses daily at the equator and its yearly orbit around the Sun.
Urwerk’s co-founder, Felix Baumgartner, elucidates on the significance of this concept, drawing inspiration from Gustave Sandoz’s 19th-century clock, which visualized time as a countdown in kilometers. Baumgartner highlights the clock’s role in rendering humanity’s cosmic journey tangible, translating astronomical distances into tangible time units.
“We continue to explore the relationship between time and space,” said Urwerk co-founder Felix Baumgartner. “As far back as the 1800s, Gustave Sandoz made this relationship visible by creating a clock that, instead of displaying the hours, showed a countdown in kilometers. This totally original instrument reminded us of our condition as mere passengers on the space vessel Earth, hurtling through the galaxy at phenomenal speed. It’s this concept that we picked up in our 100 collection and that we’re now interpreting through our SpaceTime Blade. It’s about making our journey visible; translating the 940 million kilometers we travel around the Sun each year into hours, minutes and seconds.”
Despite its avant-garde design and complex functionalities, the SpaceTime Blade remains an exclusive offering, limited to a production run of 33 units, each priced at CHF 55,000.00 (US$61,000). Urwerk’s innovative approach to timekeeping transcends mere utility, embodying an artistic fusion of technology and philosophy, inviting enthusiasts to embark on a journey through time and space.
