foversta[PuristSPro Moderator]
20814
Baselworld 2012: Harry Winston Opus 12
Mar 07, 2012,14:03 PM
Press
Release
Opus 12, Overturns
Time
The presentation of the Harry Winston's
Opus timepiece is always awaited with great impatience at Baselworld and
this year's Opus has what it takes to puzzle those passsionate about
high complications like never before.
Opus 12 defies
the conventional rules of watchmaking, giving birth to the most
improbable mechanical concept. This exceptional timepiece deliberately
overturns the perception of time by drawing its inspiration from the
Copernican revolution according to which the earth rotates around the
sun and around itself. Time no longer reads via a pair of hands
positioned in the center of the dial, but by the peripheral drive of 12
pairs of hands going from the circumference to the center. The hands,
pointed towards the interior draw attention to the center of time. A
retrograde hand, synchronized with the main minutes hand, advances along
a five-minute sector. At the end of its travel it flies back to its
initial position while the long five-minutes hand pivots and sets itself
still.
In most watches the evolution of time is imperceptible.
Opus 12, on the other hand, goes into action in a remarkable way, its
hands changing the guard every five minutes. At each change of the hour,
the movement executes a very elaborate drill exercise by the
successive
rotation of the hands. Below the retrograde
indication, a floating small seconds hand graduated on a translucent
ring passes above a power-reserve indicator.
The
winding of the movement departs from convention. The crown must be
turned in the counterclockwise direction to simultaneously wind up the
two barrels, one providing energy to the movement and the other, to the
animation. In order for the crown to be accessible, it has been placed
in the center of the caseband, requiring a transmission wheel that
reverses the winding direction.
Opus 12 also breaks the rules in terms of decoration and
finish, deliberately abandoning the chamfering used in traditional
watchmaking. Shot-peening hardens the surfaces and brings a resolutely
contemporary aesthetic. The "Côtes de Genève", visible through the
sapphire-crystal caseback, are for their part interpreted in a
spectacular manner. The styling remains faithful to the heritage of the
House of Harry Winston. The emblematic arches recall the neoclassical
vault which dominates the famous facade of the Harry Winston Salon in
New York and the openwork hands, the Manhattan
skyscrapers.
Another feature of this Opus 12 is the
absence of a traditional dial, which channels attention towards the
indications and the animation and confers a mysterious character to this
exceptional piece.
The Opus 12, which reinterprets time, is a real innovation
in watchmaking. Nothing like this has been done before. The idea has
sprung from the mind of its creator, Emmanuel Bouchet, who developed
this remarkable work in close cooperation with the designer, Augustin
Nussbaum, and the House of Harry
Winston.
Opus 12, an Astonishing
MechanismEach of the 12 stations around the dial carries a long hand
to indicate the five-minute intervals and a short hand to indicate the
hours. The former rotates about its axis and the latter orbits the
former to appear above it or hide beneath it. Each hand is attached to a
driving wheel and each displays a blue face when it indicates the time
and a neutral face when it is not in motion. The hands are activated
thanks to two crown wheels turning around the dial. Both of them have
toothed sections that engage the driving wheels of the hands at each
station.
The outer crown wheel, which activates the
minutes hand, goes around the dial in one hour, advancing at five-minute
intervals from one station to the next. A first toothed section engages
the wheel of the next station and the five-minute hand turns over to
its indicating side. In parallel, a second toothed section leaves the
previous station and the minutes hand turns over to its neutral
side.
At the change of the hour, one witnesses a real spectacle.
The inner crown wheel, which has not moved for 60 minutes, suddenly
takes off around the dial and its toothed section drives the rotation of
the hours hands in rapid succession. As the crown wheel goes around,
the hours hand orbits 360° around the minutes hand station after
station, and its blue color appears on the surface in a flash before
disappearing again.
The kinematics lasts for a few
seconds until, after passing by the 12 stations, the toothed section
drives the indication of the next hour and stabilizes itself. The speed
of rotation is controlled by an escapement, which needs far less energy
than a flywheel governor and which provides a captivating sound effect.
In fact one of the challenges of this Opus 12 has been to optimize the
energy necessary for the precision of the movement and for the
animation.
The movement and the animation are fed by independent
barrels. The barrel for the animation functions with the help of a
differential that transmits the energy necessary for the travel of the
crown wheels at the intervals governed by the movement. Both barrels are
wound simultaneously, and the springs take the same time 45 hours to
unwind. The movement stops when the energy required for the animation is
not sufficient enough. Each barrel has a slipping spring to prevent any
breakage at the end of winding. The power reserve of both barrels is
shown along an arc of a circle in the center of the
watch.
A balance-wheel, oscillating at 18,000v/h,
allows the small seconds hand to advance in jumps of one fifth of a
second. An incredible module accommodates the 27 hands and their
associated gear trains. The outer crown wheel, which governs the 12
five-minute hands, forms a wall rotating around this module. The
watchmakers therefore had to construct an outside transmission system to
connect the winding stem, positioned at the base of the timepiece, to
the crown, which had to be accessible halfway up the caseband. The
transmission wheel reverses the direction of winding. The setting can
only be made by advancing the
time.
Emmanuel BouchetBorn in Saint-Dizier (France), Emmanuel
Bouchet is the youngest of four siblings. He spent most of his youth
between the Haut Doubs, where part of his family lives, and the Meuse
region. He was immersed into the watchmaking world from an early age
through contacts with family members working in the industry. Through
many years of regularly wandering through workshops, the idea of
embracing this profession gradually became an obvious
choice.
Emmanuel thus trained as a watchmaker-repairer in Morteau
(France), graduating in 1980. He began his watchmaking career in the
family jewellery store headed by his father Léon, whom he succeeded in
1984, and who taught him the jewellery trade in which he earned his
Master’s hallmark in the early 1990s. For around 20 years, Emmanuel was
involved in selling and repairing watches, as well as restoring antique
clocks for the major French national
museums.
1999 saw the start of a new professional adventure for
Emmanuel in Switzerland, where he began working for a number of
prestigious watch manufacturers and perfected his craft by dealing with
the most exceptional horological complications: extra-thin movements,
perpetual calendars, retrograde chronographs, tourbillons... He served
in various capacities including taking charge of a complications
workshop, of a horological methods department and of a watch laboratory.
These experiences enabled him to participate in the development and the
industrialisation of a number of complex calibres and
modules.
Emmanuel took a consistent interest in all
facets of his profession, from design through to product
industrialisation. That is what led him in 2008 to co-found Centagora, a
company based in Geneveys-sur-Coffrane (Switzerland), to make his
skills and expertise in the field of high-end watchmaking and technology
available to the watch industry at
large.
Above and beyond his passion for watchmaking, Emmanuel is a
keen sports enthusiast and his pastimes include handball, downhill and
cross country skiing, cycling, as well as gliding – a discipline in
which he earned his pilot’s license in 1986. In parallel with his
professional and personal activities, he is an active volunteer within
several regional sport and charitable
associations.
Emmanuel Bouchet has been married to
Céline for 24 years and is the father of two daughters, Fédiline and
Léonie.