A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Capital and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. Dubai Watch Week’s Horology Forum is the latest such event to make its way to the Big Apple. Horologists create concepts and designs for watches and bring those designs to life. Horologists study and become familiar with every component of a watch, even the minuscule pieces in the timekeeping mechanism. A horologist specializes in the art and science of timekeeping. Īnd if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called The Essential List. Horology involves everything having to do with timekeeping and watches.

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As Nydegger puts it: “There is a culture behind it – and a history, and a future.”Ĭlick on the video above to find out more. Since the invention of mechanical timekeeping in the 13th century, clocks and watches have appeared in fine art classics. Ferdinand Berthoud was one of the rare 18th century horologists able to wield the pen and the file. Greubel Forsey is situated in the picturesque Swiss town of La Chaux-de-Fonds, where watchmaking is a way of life – it has been a centre for the craft since the 16th Century.Īlong with a watch museum – which displays some of the town’s earliest, most intricately-engraved pocket watches – there are numerous watch firms and artisan watchmakers. Ferdinand Berthoud Making the art of horology accessible. Prefaced by the French term haute, haute horology refers to the absolute finest of high watchmaking. It’s an odd term, but essentially, horology (horlogerie in French) is the study (or science) of time or watches. In current usage, horology refers mainly to the study of mechanical time-keeping devices, while chronometry more broadly includes electronic devices that have largely supplanted mechanical clocks for the best accuracy and precision in time-keeping. Clocks, watches, clockwork, sundials, hourglasses, clepsydras, timers, time recorders, marine chronometers, and atomic clocks are all examples of instruments used to measure time. The firm’s Grande Sonnerie watch is created with 935 handcrafted components – they are able to make only eight of these limited-edition timepieces every year. If you’re interested in watches, then you are interested in horology (the art of watchmaking). Horology is the study of the measurement of time. “There is an interaction with your timepiece… it’s not just to show you the time.” Art of Horology Created by watchmaker Steven Richardson, The Art of Horology is a nonprofit program that offers various watchmaking courses and workshops. “I think with mechanical watchmaking, it’s more of an art,” says Michel Nydegger of luxury watchmaking company Greubel Forsey.

Art of horology