Atelier Audemars Piguet Museum
One of the most celebrated watch makers is formally showcasing their history. The Atelier Audemars Piguet Museum is set to open this summer.
On the outskirts of the small village of Le Brassus, secluded in a high mountain valley of the Swiss Jura, the Musée Atelier Audemars Piguet – an iconic total work of art of the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and ATELIER BRÜCKNER, the scenography specialist – opens its doors on 25 June. The spiral-shaped building is embedded in the surrounding landscape and features curved walls made of load-bearing structural glass. Optically flowing transitions characterise the exhibition. Depending on the time of day and the season, the overall impression changes. Reflections and shadows combine to create a spectacle in which the course of time is inscribed.
The Atelier Audemars Piguet Museum is situated in the historical location where the company of the luxury watch brand Audemars Piguet was established in 1875. In the light-filled new building, ATELIER BRÜCKNER has incorporated a rhythmically flowing route through the exhibition. It starts in the historic building and, going in a clockwise direction, slopes gently down into the heart of the spiral, after which it rises again in the contrary direction – filled with energy like the springs of a watch. Visitors experience the route as a flowing continuum with a composed narration.
Each chapter has its own design language and is introduced by an interlude, a mechanical sculpture or an artistically designed display item. The showcases are positioned within the architecture precisely. Their appearance changes, depending on the particular part of the narration being provided and the architectonic requirement. Apart from glass, defining materials are brass, bleached ash and glossy black lacquer as a surface coating.
The history of the company serves as a starting point of the narration. A ferrous boulder references the significance of metal for the development of a tradition of craftsmanship in this isolated region. This is followed by a kinetic model that illustrates the geographical location of the village of Le Brassus and its distance away from Geneva, to which the components of highly complex watch mechanisms were delivered from the 17th century onwards. A three-dimensional genealogical tree provides an overview of the Audemars and Piguet families and how families in the Vallée de Joux worked together to make watches.
More than 300 timepieces – each one unique and a superlative exemplar – are shown in the exhibition. A start is made with early works of the watchmaking art, including a pocket watch by Jules Louis Audemars made of 18 carat rose gold, which combines a perpetual eternal calendar with the mechanism of quarter-hour repetition and the independent “jumping” second. The complicated pocket watch by Joseph Piguet, dating from around 1769, is the oldest object of the exhibition and undoubtedly its masterpiece. The items are presented in black showcases that are reminiscent of angular blocks of iron ore.
After the “First Watchmakers”, the focus turns to the “Mechanical Heart” of the watches, which is introduced with an artistic sculpture by François Junod and accompanied by mechanical models, which visitors can use to see how individual components interact with each other. The wheel train, the escapement and the balance wheel become visually accessible and comprehensible.
