step contained in the workshop-museum in le brassus
Nestled into the rolling inexperienced hills of Le Brassus, Switzerland, the Bjarke Ingels-designed Musée Atelier Audemars Piguet merges historical past and innovation below one grassy roof. Partially embedded into the bottom, the distinctive construction suggests a spiraling, luminous landform. Ingels and his staff accomplished the pavilion in 2020 to enhance the corporate’s oldest constructing, the place Jules Louis Audemars and Edward Auguste Piguet first established their workshop in 1875. A mixed museum and lively manufacturing workshop, guests are invited to discover an enormous assortment of historic timepieces as watchmakers reveal their craft.
With operations now in full swing, designboom visited the museum to expertise the making of those timepieces and discover Audemars Piguet‘s in depth assortment — particularly the ultra-complex ‘Code 11.59’ wristwatch introduced in January 2023.
picture © Iwan Baan
structure designed by bjarke ingels group
Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), in shut collaboration with Audemars Piguet and native agency CCHE, crafted the spiral-shaped pavilion and musée in Le Brassus with partitions of curved structural glass. Whereas these glass partitions assist the metal roof, they’re shaded by a brass mesh which serves to passively management the inside mild and temperature — a method which is additional assisted by the constructing’s inexperienced roof.
picture © Iwan Baan
contained in the swiss musée and workshop
Inside, the flooring are designed to suit the contours of the panorama and create a linear, linked house inside the museum. The curved glass partitions wrap in a clockwise route in the direction of the middle of the spiral, then transfer in the wrong way, permitting guests to journey all through the constructing in the identical means that they might transfer by way of the winding mechanism of a clock.
picture © designboom
observe the meticulous craftsmanship of audemars piguet
Because the Musée Atelier Audemars Piguet combines a museum and workspace, it options conventional workshops the place guests to Le Brassus can observe workers members meticulously crafting the finely detailed timepieces. Spanning two centuries of historical past, the encircling museum house shows over 300 watches, containing feats of complexity, miniaturization, and unconventional designs.
‘Watchmaking like structure is the artwork and science of imbuing metals and minerals with power, motion, intelligence and measure to convey them to life within the type of telling time,’ says Bjarke Ingels.
picture © designboom
‘We needed guests to expertise our heritage, savoir-faire, cultural origins and openness to the world in a constructing that might replicate each our rootedness and forward-thinking spirit,’ feedback Jasmine Audemars, Audemars Piguet’s Chairwoman of the Board of Administrators. ‘However, earlier than all, we needed to pay tribute to the watchmakers and craftspeople who’ve made what Audemars Piguet is right now, technology after technology.’
picture © Iwan Baan
exhibition design by atelier brückner
The staff labored with ATELIER BRÜCKNER to curate the exhibition house of Musée Atelier Audemars Piguet, which the German museum designer envisioned as a ‘musical rating.’ Visitors are given the chance to expertise among the conventional strategies that Audemars Piguet’s ending consultants use, comparable to satin brushing and round graining. The tour of the exhibition culminates within the middle of the spiral with the show of grandes issues.
These astronomical, chiming, and chronograph watches revolve across the ‘Universelle’ (1899), probably the most difficult watch ever created by Audemars Piguet. Now the gathering is joined by the ‘Code 11.59,’ the producer’s very first ultra-complicated self-winding wristwatch — a feat of meticulous engineering which counts over 1,100 elements.
