Gatherings: Gübelin Celebrates Its 170th Anniversary With A Watch Designed By Santiago Calatrava
If you’ve ever been watch shopping in Geneva, Zurich, Lucerne, Lugano, or St. Moritz, you likely know Gübelin as a retailer of some of Switzerland’s most coveted watch brands. For its 170th anniversary, however, Gübelin is paying homage to its legacy as a watchmaker. Earlier this month, the brand launched its own Gübelin watch designed by superstar architect Dr. Santiago Calatrava. To celebrate the occasion, Hodinkee Editor Rich Fordon joined Gübelin’s President Raphael Gübelin, his father, Thomas Gübelin, Dr. Santiago Calatrava, and a select group of VIP guests including old Hodinkee friend Kristian Haagen for a seated dinner at St. Gallen’s Pfalzkeller Gallery. Over dinner and drinks, guests were treated to a hands-on viewing of the Ipsomatic led by Raphael Gübelin.
Founded in 1854, the House of Gübelin evolved from a small watchmaker’s shop in Lucerne into one of the world’s most respected names in watches, jewelry, and gemology, with a network of Gem Labs in Lucerne, New York, Hong Kong, and Bangkok. In previous decades, it also sold watches under its own name including Ipsomatic models in the 1950s and ’60s powered by Felsa’s groundbreaking Bidynator automatic movement, which was the first commercially available movement with a bi-directional rotor. While the Ipsomatic is well known among collectors, anyone with a passing knowledge of architecture will be familiar with the name Santiago Calatrava, the Swiss-Spanish architect, artist, and sculptor whose notable creations include the World Trade Center Transportation Hub in New York City and dozens of other high-profile projects around the world including the Pfalzkeller Gallery in St. Gallen, where the watch launch took place.
Santiago Calatrava is known for his swooping organic forms and bridges whose airy steel and glass spans seem to float above the water, a distinctive aesthetic he brought to bear on the new Gübelin watch. Limited to just 170 pieces and featuring a curvaceous platinum case, it marks the architect’s watch design debut and a stylish return to form for Gübelin. Like the location itself, a futuristic circular forum built against the 1,000-year-old walls of the Carolingian Abbey of St. Gall, one of Switzerland’s first UNESCO Heritage Sites, the sculptural organic lines of the case and time-only dial capture the architect’s blend of minimalism and expressiveness. In the tradition of its midcentury predecessors, the watch is powered by the historically significant (and painstakingly restored) Calibre 1560 Felsa “Bidynator” movement – a serious horological statement that adds gravitas for collectors, while also giving new life to existing resources.
The Gübelin timepiece also represents a major advance in traceability and authentication: a first-of-its-kind system of invisible physical tracers that, combined with blockchain technology, sets a new standard of tamper-proof authenticity for watches. The physical tracers consist of “nanolabels” that are invisible even under a microscope, cannot be removed by polishing, washing, or irradiation, and can be read at any time. Thanks to data recorded on the decentralized blockchain, each watch can be verified as genuine decades later. “Proof of Authenticity offers the entire watch industry a completely new level of authenticity and traceability,” explains Raphael Gübelin. “Each component of the watch can be marked using an innovative combination of physical and digital technologies. With the Ipsomatic, we are introducing this innovation to watches for the first time.” This pioneering milestone in watch authentication was just one among several highlights of an evening celebrating creativity, innovation, and Gübelin’s long legacy of Swiss watchmaking.
This article was produced in partnership with Gübelin.
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