“What art does — maybe what it does most completely — is tell us, make us feel that what we think we know, we don’t. There are whole worlds around us that we’ve never glimpsed.” Greil Marcus — Wednesday May 28th — —

I love listening. It is one of the only spaces where you can be still and moved at the same time. — Nayyirah Waheed — Wednesday May 28th — —

The idea is to die young as late as possible. — Ashley Montagu — Wednesday May 28th — —

Look over the Watchmakers’ Shoulders

We have slowly been moving into the fascinating world of hand-made watches over the last two years, and this ‘Look over the Watchmaker’s Shoulders’ by German watchmaker NOMOS Glashütte inhabits everything we love about the beautiful craft. Since 2005 NOMOS has been building all its movements and watches, among which are the beautiful Tangente, Orion and Zürich models, in-house in its facilities in Glashütte, Saxony which is located in the South of Germany. The year 1845 marks an important year for that city, as it was the moment when Ferdinand Adolph Lange settled in Glashütte as the first master watchmaker, following a call to the Royal Saxon government, after which he received 7000 ‘Taler’ start-up funding and began training the first watchmaker. Since then the watches and fine mechanical industry has been the economic backbone of the city. Some of the more renowned watch company operating from Glashütte at the moment are A. Lange & Söhne, Bruno Söhnle Uhrenatelier Glashütte and ofcourse NOMOS Glashütte, who has given this beautiful insight into its Chronometrie.

NOMOS Glashütte was founded in January 1990, two months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, by Roland Schwertner. The designs for the first collection were drawn up by Susanne Günther, drawing influence from Bauhaus purist style. These watches have since gone on to become design classics and win multiple awards. In its early years, the company focused on manufacturing mechanical watches with hand-wound movements. The basis for the movement was, until 2005, the Swiss-made ETA SA / Peseux 7001. Since April 2005, NOMOS Glashütte started only using in-house built movements; making the watches truly made in Glashütte.

Only the designation of a few products around the world are as strictly protected as watches from Glashütte. To emphasize these stringent quality standards, the appellation was placed under special protection: Only companies that create at least 50 percent of the value of a watch’s caliber in Glashütte may benefit from the reputation of this “center of excellence” and offer their timepieces as Glashütte watches. The fact that NOMOS Glashütte actually builds up to 95 percent of each movement in Glashütte, far exceeding the required 50 percent, makes their watch true products of excellence.

For more information on the beautiful watches of NOMOS Glashütte see here.