Ahmet Aydın: Hi Mr. Felix and Mr. Martin. We would like to hear about your personal story and about Urwerk. How did you start the company? And how did you guys meet? And everything, you know.
Felix Baumgartner: Sure. So, we’ve started 22 years ago actually. It’s in 98 we exhibited the first time in Basel. And it came after, actually, a vision of contemporary watchmaking, because I’m born, myself Felix, I’m born in a watchmaker family, in a very traditional watchmaker family. My grandfather’s worked for IWC and my father was a clock repairer. The idea is to reinvent haute horlogerie. Because, frankly speaking, it was super annoying in the 90s that the haute horlogerie trend repeated every year the same complications and the same aesthetics. So, through my brother, and my cousin who studied art, I met Martin and we’ve exchanged ideas of concepts, of having our vision of timekeeping. Is that right Martin?
Martin Frei: Absolutely right, so. 22 years ago I met with’em all, this took place in the legendary meetings we had, you know, as a student you have cool parties and so on. And that’s actually how we met, you know, the cousin of my artist friend Christoph Draeger, Thomas’ and Felix’ buddy came to our parties and that’s actually how we met each other first and then started to talk about time, about watchmaking, about what making machines. Maybe three years later, actually it was quite a long time after the first meeting, Thomas went to study and Felix started his first job in Geneva with friend Anderson and then, at some point, we met because they had an idea to make a special watch with an indication, with different time indication. It was actually the initial…
Felix Baumgartner: Exactly. It was an idea which comes from 17th century night clocks in Italy and very impressive clocks held by the most important religious families in Italy in 1650 to 1700. The gasolier was like a gift of the pope to his bishops, to his most important friends, yeah it was kept by the most important families but the timepiece, the night clocks from Italy and I was lucky to be a part when my father was able to restore one of these clocks and my brother and myself we saw that clock and it inspired us a lot and impressed us a lot because its time-telling is just showy as cool as symbolic, very nice way.
Martin Frei: It’s a very intriguing way to tell the time, actually you have just one hour instead of all the hours, you know, you focus on this one hour and this is indicated by the minutes, like one hour moves on a scale and you actually have the time indicated in a very different way but very simple way. It’s easy to tell the time once you know. And that’s somehow something surprising because you normally use those dials to read the time in a particular way. Everybody has an ingrained way and so when you come with a new way of doing that but that’s also very simple, very quick to read. You really have the chances to re-do the watch, to also make it look very different, because you have the time indication actually only over certain segments of the dial that you usually use. You can actually reshape the whole watch case. So that really was the cool procedure to the experiment.
Ahmet Aydin: Where is your atelier and how many employees do you have?
Felix Baumgartner: So, we have actually three places, three ateliers. We have one head office and an atelier in Geneva center. So this is the place where we have our communication and sales but also myself and some watchmakers final controlling our watches, final assembling and then we have Zurich (atelier), on its one side is Martin in Zurich with (making) research and concepts and the forms. But we have also mechanicians in Zurich, who are producing the parts, its CNC machines and finishing machines, and also watchmakers who do some specific watches in Zurich. And then, in the middle between Zurich and Geneva, in Aarau, it’s a smaller city, there we have actually two engineers working on the technical plans and technical inventions of our work based on the ideas of Martin and myself. So these are the three structures who altogether make 150-over watches per year and we have a structure of, like, fifteen-sixteen people; not fifty-sixty, fifteen-sixteen.
Martin Frei: A small company. (here, chuckles)
Felix Baumgartner: It is a small artisanal company, where it is about creating and taking risks. So it’s not a big company, it’s not about numbers or volume. The goal is to create incredible timepieces.
Martin Frei: We are avant-garde of watchmaking. That is what we are trying.
Ahmet Aydin: What else, can you say about yourself and your brand?
Felix Baumgartner: Yes, we are the best. (again, chuckles), we are the coolest. It is easy, you know, no but we are the only company which is created by a watchmaker and an artist. Usually you have a businessman or just a watchmaker or a combination of businessman and watchmaker. This is what is the condition for Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, Vacheron Constantin; all these are actually watchmaker and businessmen. And I’m a watchmaker and he’s an artist, Martin is not a businessman.
Ahmet Aydin: Are you designing all the watches?
Martin Frei: Absolutely, I’m in, we do that together, partly with Felix, of course, about the concepts of the watches, that’s already the bigger part of the design. And then, you also have the engineers, and I like if the design actually very close to the engineering world. It shouldn’t be too, too designed but even with that in mind, you know, I want to have them function very differently, so we have a different time indication but also all the things that you used to looking at watches can be rethought and interpreted in a new way, so the crown can become something that, still as a work, still as a crown, can be a very different thing, you know, can be bigger, can be, you know, you can use it in a different way. The interactivity of the watches is an interesting thing for us as well. You are in a relation to the machine and that has to be somehow expressed and enjoyed. It comes also a bit from the feeling for cameras, that I’m a big fan of cameras and machines in general. We have a fetish for and the way a machine feels, especially so small machines you have the clicks, the way you turn a wheel or so, you know how that feels and in the time, since I’m here on this planet, of course I’ve experienced with cameras my father had. So you have some kind of fetish for machines. This is also into the creation, that is, different layers and levels being created.
Ahmet Aydin: I know you’re producing 150 watches per year, but, have this coronavirus affected you in anyway?
Felix Baumgartner: We don’t know yet. Actually we are a small economy.
Martin Frei: Honestly, I would say it’s too early to see the real effects. Honestly, today we cannot feel any effect but we can hear in the market that it’s slowing down.
Ahmet Aydin: Let me ask you one last question. BaselWorld is cancelled, Watches & Wonders (SIHH) cancelled and everything cancelled. How will these affect the Swiss watchmaking industry in 2020 and 2021?
Felix Baumgartner: I think the watch industry will get affected a lot.
Martin Frei: In general, the whole planet will be affected.
Felix Baumgartner: Since we’re in luxury business, it’s not something you need every day to keep alive. So you get nice watches, when you have the time and the luxury for it. And when you have to fight a virus, it’s not your first need. So I’m sure that the watch business will slow down this year.
Ahmet Aydin: Thank you very much.
Felix and Martin: You’re welcome. Thank you.
