| “Excellence is the state of being extraordinary. Someone who follows his passion and sees it through to the end is extraordinary.” |
Ludwig Oechslin is a master watchmaker, archaeologist, art historian and philosopher. For him, the essence of life lies in discovery, in finding something out for oneself. Thanks to his curiosity, unique, intricate timepieces have emerged, such as the Perpetual Ludwig, Freak and the astronomical Trilogie der Zeit (trilogy of time) series.
Mr Oechslin, what should a watch be able to do today?
More than anything else, a watch is a means of communication by which people orientate themselves with one another in time. First and foremost, the watch must break up the day into hours, minutes and possibly seconds. A watch then needs a calendrical section giving the date, weekday, month and possibly year. Today, of course, in the era of globalisation, being able to set a second time zone is also a necessary feature.
In an age of mobile phones, computers, the Blackberry and other organisers: Do we still need watches?
Hold on a minute! They are all watches! But if you are talking about a mechanical watch, then no, we don’t really need those any more.
Why should somebody pay lots of money for a mechanical watch?
The person who buys a mechanical watch wants to decorate him- or herself with it, but it is also a way of defining oneself. Whoever buys a complex astronomical watch would maybe like to show how educated he or she is. In terms of the modern, mechanical watch, where the workings of the clock are visible, the trend is clearly towards an item of jewellery. The work put into the clockwork can add value to such an extent that it is comparable with diamonds and gold.
What does it take to produce an excellent watch?
Up to now, watches have been constructed on the basis of a relatively complicated system of levers. I try to use one small part for several tasks at the same time. The fewer the number of components, the fewer the sources of error. Excellence lies in the elegance of the construction. An elegant construction is very efficient and very simple.
You are considered a master in the art of watchmaking. How did you discover watches?
When I was a student, I saw a beautiful silver watch with a lever on the side at the Kunst- und Antiquitätenmesse (fine art and antiques fair) in Basel. If you pulled on the lever, it chimed the time, the quarter-hours and hours. I was fascinated by the information that a sound signal from such a small gadget could give. I couldn’t afford the watch, so I decided to become a watchmaker so I could make watches like these myself.
In 1977, I began my apprenticeship with Jörg Spöring, in parallel with a course in archaeology.
You became a master watchmaker in passing, so to speak, alongside your other studies, including astronomy, theoretical physics and mathematics. Which came first, the desire to know more about astronomy and antiquity or the idea of how useful these studies could be for your watch-making art?
First came the craze for education: People wanted a full education and philosophy was the ultimate discipline. I arrived at university, wanted to do everything and then saw that there was too much friction between science and the humanities. Because science would have been easier for me to do, I decided to study first those subjects that I would probably not tackle later, i.e. Greek and Latin.
Your teacher Jörg Spöring told the Die Weltwoche (Swiss weekly magazine) that you sometimes worked for days on end in order to complete a piece of work. Are you obsessed?
No, I am not obsessed. There were indeed many days when I worked for 16 or 18 hours, slept for 3 to 4 hours and then continued to work, but definitely not without a break. That is a mystification of the matter.
What drives you in your work?
Curiosity! I want to know if something will turn out as I imagine it will. I am incredibly curious and impatient. I have to work as quickly and as much as possible until something works or is finished.
And are you no longer interested in it afterwards?
It is often the case that I am no longer interested in it afterwards. I just move on. But I have to deal with things without interruption.
Are you fascinated by novelty, things that you have to discover yourself?
Yes, that is the best thing in life!
You speak of watches as communication tools. What do you mean by that?
Are they anything else? I look at a watch, say that it is five to five, and the other person understands what I mean, says maybe, no, your watch is fast or slow.
So the watch is a chronometer, then?
No, not at all. In its daily use, the watch is purely a means of mutual communication. That is why it has been standardised. If you want to define a watch as such, then you have to define it as two series of events that are linked to one another and measure each other in a reciprocal way.
Can you please explain that?
The Sun and the Moon give rise to a series of events that repeat themselves: day and night, the phases of the Moon, the seasons. Days are fundamental. People don’t have to count days for themselves, but they do if they want to meet somebody in five days’ time. Up until the Middle Ages, there was no shorter event series than the day. It was not until the discovery of the pendulum that ticks regularly from side to side that man had an instrument that could produce smaller series of events that could be counted, and in this way it was possible to subdivide the day.
In the ancient world, the Greeks, for example, measured time using shadow tables that classified the shadows cast by the body according to specific times of the day.
Yes, but the Sun didn’t shine everywhere, and they were relatively unreliable timepieces. That is why it is important to arrive at one event series in which people can reliably say that by it they mean that and that. It is a convention. Then the watch becomes a means of communication.
Even during your apprenticeship as a watchmaker, you were considered so talented that your teacher recommended you restore the Farnese Clock in the Vatican (1979/80). How did you manage that?
The Farnese Clock is a highly complex astronomical machine that dates from the beginning of the 18th century. In order to prepare for the task, then carry out reconditioning and follow-up work, I had to immerse myself in the historical reality of cosmology, astronomy and whatever else, you name it, besides. In order to avoid a situation in which people have to keep taking the Farnese Clock apart, I measured it as accurately as possible. I took it apart down to its individual parts then took photos of the parts from all sides on graph paper. With these photos, the elements of a construction plan, it is now possible to understand the entire clock.
Is the clock working now?
I made it work, but it isn’t working now, and that is intended. A clock like this would only wear out over time and self-destruct. I have conserved it well and it is on display.
As Director of the Musée International d’Horlogerie (MIH), you are surrounded by some very valuable and rare clocks. What are the most fascinating pieces on display in La Chaux-de-Fonds?
Giovanni De Dondi’s planetarium, for example. The reconstruction is fascinating because another historian using documents carried it out. Or a planetarium by François Ducommun-dit-Baudry. It is truly beautiful, with its celestial globe that you can open into two halves in which the planetarium comes into its own.
In 2001, when you moved to the MIH, you told the Le Temps newspaper that you wanted to collect timepieces with a history and to analyse the social history behind the pieces. Have you managed to do that?
To a certain extent, yes. Indeed mostly. Working together with Claude-Alain Künzi on a project for the Swiss National Science Foundation, for a while I tried to conduct interviews with those people who had donated something. Even when these things are, to some extent, very simple objects, you can show how, in a wider context, they could be of value. I have also found some pieces on the market that I knew had a history.
For example?
The geographical clock that the clockmaker Zacharias Landeck built on the basis of Johann Baptista Homann’s plans. It is the first world clock and was portrayed in a large engraving. All later world clocks were based on this, just that no one knew any more where the clock was. Then one day it emerged at an auction. We had no money, offered the minimum price and actually got it!
Were you just lucky or was there more to it?
We suddenly had the original clock, which is the mother of all world clocks, and the engraving, too. I wondered why we did get it. So I asked a colleague from the clock museum in Furtwangen, Germany. He told me that they had been very interested in the clock but had concluded that most of the clock was forged.
What did you do then?
Well, I looked at the clock again more closely. Its construction is relatively primitive, which is totally incomprehensible today. So people thought it was a fake. But clockmaking had only just started in those days, so the construction makes sense. It is actually genuine.
Are there lots of fakes on the mechanical clock market?
Everything can be fake. In 1987, I was able to examine a movement in Vienna, a classical masterpiece from Nuremberg. In 2004, the name Johann Wolffgang Hartich emerged at an auction. The name is at the origin of the aforementioned movement. I became curious, looked through my photographs and compared it with the ones from the auction. At first, I thought that the clocks looked similar. Then I realised that the movement in the case was in fact the one that I had examined. In 1987, however, this movement was not in a case. The fact that I had this documentation and could prove that it was a fake was a stroke of luck you don’t have every day.
What is the fascination in vintage and collector clocks?
You will have to ask the collectors that question. While one is fascinated by someone such as Philipp Matthäus Hahn and would like to collect his works, another is fascinated by technological finesse and only collects works displaying a technological feat. A third collects only grand style calendars.
What fascinates you?
First and foremost, I am fascinated by the in fact not so simple theoretical background to a clock. A clock may be inconspicuous, but when its construction is elegant, I know that there is a mind-blowing amount of work behind it. The more elegant and simple a movement, the more someone has considered it, concentrated it and synthesised it.
What do you consider the perfect watch?
The one that functions the simplest but nonetheless shows the time clearly. I find, for example, ETA 2892 (a mechanical movement with automatic winding) one of the most elegant and most perfect constructions.
One of your quotes is: “My task is to transpose the cosmos.” What do you mean by that?
Our wristwatches are principally a small model of the Earth. With a watch, you reproduce the rotation of the Earth; it is merely reduced to a sensible size so that you can experience it. Even if the rotation of the Earth is halved with a 12-hour clock face, the watch remains a small model of the Earth. That is the cosmos on the wrist.
Do you equate the Earth with the cosmos?
The Earth is a part of the cosmos. Without its relationship to the Sun and the stars, the Earth would be able to turn as it wants. There would be no cosmos and no rotation of the Earth. This relationship is the cosmos.
How far does this relationship reach?
At night-time it is the entire firmament. Though the planets are the most unreliable indicators. It is the fixed stars that are reliable.
On the one hand, you want to transpose the cosmos, on the other you dream of producing a simple watch. Is this a contradiction or does it just seem like one?
You only transpose the relationship of the rotation of the Earth to these stars. A contradiction? No, because simplicity is the most difficult discipline. Behind everything simple lies a mountain of synthesis work.
In 2006, the journal Chronos wrote in celebratory terms: “Oechslin can’t leave it alone.” You had produced a wonderfully simple watch for the MIH. What is the story behind this watch, without a brand and from which no one can make much money?
At the start they wanted to patent the watch, but I was against this. We are a public institution so we make the watch available to the public. Embassy approached me. They wanted to win prestige through its partnership work with our museum and we wanted to round off our budget. This meant that I would develop a gift concept. It was agreed contractually that the museum would receive 700 Swiss francs per watch sold for research, conservation and the restoration of collection items.
The 2.20 m high Türler clock, which took you nine years to create alongside your teacher Spöring and Franz Türler, is a masterwork in the art of clockmaking. The clock has a planetarium, among other things, and the bead that is Pluto will spend 247 years travelling around its disc until it is again where it stands today. How do you conceive something as fantastic as this?
When Mr Türler approached Mr Spöring in 1987 with the wish to have the biggest, the best and the most perfect, I told him that what he wanted didn’t exist. It was a challenge, however. Based on the Trilogy of Time, I suggested elaborating a concept that would show all features in an enhanced state of grandeur. The Türler clock has five stations: the horizon seen from the Earth and which corresponds to the astrolabe; the entire planetarium, the complete planetary system up to and including Pluto; the positioning of the Earth, Sun and Moon in the tellurion; the globe, which shows exactly the eclipses of the Sun and Moon in the most reduced form possible; and a full calendar clock, which will operate accurately for more than 1,000 years.
As the clock’s crowning glory, you have allowed the firmament to rotate around it, once in every 25,800 years. Will it still work afterwards?
No, and this isn’t necessary either. That is the absolute statement that has nothing to do with what is relative. The clock will have been worn out for a long time by then, but in absolute terms the inner workings of the clock are running properly.
Let’s move from grandeur to business. What is the status of the Swiss watch-making industry today?
During the 1980s and in particular the 1990s, a new crop of young and creative people emerged. The finesse of the craftsmanship has today again reached a height.
What are the general trends?
The classic mechanical wristwatch has nothing on a quartz watch if you are looking for a pure method of communication. What the Swiss industry has accomplished is to again raise the standard of the design quality of the small mechanical product to a level that holds value.
Today, you can pay well over one million Swiss francs for a luxury watch. What usage value is there for the buyer?
You’re not paying for the watch, but the lifestyle. The watch has very much become an item of jewellery and herein lies the opportunity for the clock-making industry. People need items of jewellery at least as much as bread. Jewellery is absolutely a basic necessity.
One of your theories is: “Time, as such, doesn’t exist.” But as a watchmaker you try to measure time. How do you measure something that doesn’t exist?
The use of language is imprecise. You can’t measure time, because it doesn’t exist. The watch is the generator of an event series that people link with other events in life. You can count events and say that so and so many events make up an hour.
Everyone has a different sense of time.
Yes, of course. Only when people agree on an event together does it become real. Only then.
Is time then a consensus of humanity?
Certainly. The watch is the absolutely global consensus of humanity. And the consensus is absolutely vital. Without it, everything would descend into chaos.
What does tradition mean to you?
In the watch-making industry, tradition has created a high standard in terms of technical completion. Otherwise I only respect tradition until something better and more stable has been discovered. Tradition should not be an obstacle.
Mr Oechslin, you currently hold the Prix Gaïa. Can you tell us something about the prize and its history?
The Prix Gaïa serves to recognise outstanding work in the watchmaking industry. It has been awarded by the international watch museum “L’homme et le temps" in La Chaux-de-Fonds since 1993 and is the only interdisciplinary prize free of special interests in the industry. Past prize-winners include people like historian John Leopold, watchmaker François-Paul Journe and entrepreneur Nicolas G. Hayek.
Has receiving this prize had an influence on your professional career?
The Prix Gaïa is normally seen as a lifetime achievement award. It is also presented occasionally to younger people for outstanding work they have already performed. There is no prize money associated with the Prix Gaïa – it’s simply an honour. With this in mind, I received this honour in 1995 for the work I have carried out to date as a researcher and historian. This recognition encouraged me at that time to persevere in the direction I had chosen, of trying to marry craftsmanship and the arts. Today, however, an incentive has been added to the Prix Gaïa in the form of the Julius Baer exhibition, which is awarded each to an up-and-coming talent in the watchmaking industry.
What does care mean to you?
It is worth it to tackle life and your surroundings carefully. And it is very important to take sayings seriously, for example: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. That is a very reflexive saying that makes it necessary firstly to understand another before you can start communicating with him or her. Without care, you make life difficult for yourself.
What does passion mean to you?
Passion. Yes. “Leiden schafft.” This is a wonderful German word that reflects the endless efforts to achieve a goal. (Translator’s note: A pun on the German word for passion, “Leidenschaft”, which the interviewee breaks down into a noun and verb: “Leiden schafft”, literally “suffering creates”.)
What is excellence, Mr Oechslin?
The state of being extraordinary. Something extraordinary is excellent. Someone who follows his or her passion and achieves something is extraordinary. Most people don’t manage to finish something and prefer the comfort zone. Achieving extraordinariness is to a certain extent painstaking, but in part also easy. I am not the cleverest man. I only worked from day one on things that no one else had done. When you are only one in the game, it is easy to be extraordinary.
What do you expect from a bank of excellence?
I hope for a fair business relationship. I would expect a high level of knowledge and proficiency in the tools of the trade. Excellence in this context means being able to communicate on a fair and equal basis and to trust one another.