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he UR-100, the “fourth episode in the intergalactic saga of the 100 collection”, as Martin Frei, co-founder of Urwerk, in-house designer and sci-fi geek, explains.
Adepts of the genre will recognise the inspiration, taken straight from C-3PO, the Star Wars droid whose codes it reproduces right down to the yellow gold and pale sheen of its exterior. The slim eight-cornered case with its sides of irregular lengths, partially notched, is completed by a flattopped sapphire dome. The hour is displayed on rotating satellites and the minutes on a fixed, 120° graduated arc.
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- Calibre UR 12.01 with an automatic winding system regulated by the Windfänger system, with its rotor and planetary gears. Satellite hours in aluminium rotating on Geneva crosses in titanium. Aluminium carousel. Triple baseplates in ARCAP. 18K 2N yellow gold case, 41mm.
But what sets the UR-100 apart more than anything else is the “kilometric counter” on its sides. The kilometres in question are, at 9 o’clock, the 555.55 kilometres through which the Earth turns in 20 minutes at the level of the equator, and at 3 o’clock, the speed at which the Earth revolves around the sun, i.e. 35,740 kilometres every 20 minutes.
This period of space-time is indicated by the red arrow which, after having indicated the time, disappears and is transformed into a kilometric space indicator. This completely novel “complication”, poetic and philosophical at the same time, reminds us that even without moving, we are hurtling through space – and offers a whole new way of telling the time.
Not in hours and minutes, but in kilometres of travel around ourselves and around the sun.
