Urwerk

Urwerk is the brainchild of Messrs Martin Frei and Felix Baumgartner, who respectively oversee the artistic vision and watchmaking of the brand’s highly futuristic timepieces.

The two met while Frei was attending art school in Lucerne in the mid-1990s, developing an immediate rapport due to their shared fascination with wristwatches and the concept of time.

Today, Frei’s training in sculpture and photography inform the inimitable Urwerk aesthetic, while Baumgartner - the third generation in a family of Schaffhausen watchmakers - is responsible for those technical innovations needed to translate the duo’s unique perspective on telling time. 

Named for the ancient Mesopotamian city-state of Ur - one of the cradles of human civilization where time was first studied, cataloged, and measured - Urwerk is (in the words of its founders) a “super unconventional, uncommercial” indie brand that has dominated the space for high-end concept watches over the past decade.

Founded in 1997 by Felix Baumgartner and Martin Frei, the brand is frequently associated with creative and futuristic timekeeping indications. The most renowned of these is the “Revolving Satellite” complication. Unveiled by Urwerk in 2008 (in the guise of the UR-202), it utilizes an innovative system of air turbines for movement regulation - a first in horology.

The brand’s notable patrons include Robert Downey Jr and Michael Jordan.

UR-100V “Ultraviolet,” UR-111C “Iron,” UR-220 “Falcon Project”