In 2000, historian M. David Landes noted an interesting paradox emerging in the world of luxury watches. The tourbillon, an obscure and devilishly complex device once used to improve the accuracy of pocket watches, had become fashionable in high-end wristwatches, even though it served little purpose on the wrist. It was complex, extremely expensive to manufacture, and functionally useless. "But for aficionados," writes Landes , "it remains the highest expression of the technical art of watchmaking, and makers and buyers alike rejoice in its fascinating, ceaseless movement."
What was true then, when Swiss watchmaking was still emerging from the aftermath of the quartz revolution, is absolutely true today—and in spades. The tourbillon, in which the inner workings of a watch's "heartbeat" are seductively set in motion within a delicate, constantly rotating mechanism, has become the essential component of modern fine watchmaking. It is a ubiquitous centerpiece in the most complicated watches from top-tier makers, a platform for incredible experimentation and creativity, and a statement of prestige for its wearer.
“The tourbillon is probably the most spectacular complication you can have, because it makes you question things and brings animation and character to the watch,” says Mr. Jean-Christophe Sabatier , product manager at Ulysse Nardin , whose Blast Automatic Tourbillon takes this 200-year-old concept in a decidedly contemporary direction. “Something like a perpetual calendar is very technical, but not so obvious, whereas the tourbillon makes a statement: it celebrates watchmaking.”
It is thanks to Earth's gravity, and the problems it posed for pocket watch makers, that the tourbillon exists. It is also thanks to the genius of watchmaking's greatest innovator, Mr. Abraham-Louis Breguet , who imagined this concept in 1795.
To understand why, we need to look at the essential parts at the heart of any mechanical timepiece: the escapement, the balance spring, and the balance wheel. In any watch—pocket or wrist—these tiny elements interact to regulate the energy released by the mechanism as the mainspring unwinds and convert it into lightning-fast impulses that precisely advance the watch's hands. (We explain how the escapement works in more detail here—in short, it's what makes your watch "tick").
But in a pocket watch, the pull of gravity can adversely affect the isochronism—the regularity with which the small spring winds and unwinds—of these tiny pulses, to varying degrees depending on the watch's position. If the hairspring is influenced by something, in this case, gravity pulling it in one direction, changing the time it takes to oscillate, the watch will not be accurate.
A watch can behave very differently if it's lying down, held at an angle, or placed vertically in its owner's pocket. Breguet 's magnificent solution was to counter gravity by setting these regulating elements in constant rotation. He designed a rotating carriage in which these parts rotated regularly in all vertical positions, producing a regular, average frequency for the watch, unaffected by gravity. He patented his invention in 1801 and gave it a name inspired by its seductive circular motion: tourbillon.
Breguet 's invention was ingenious, but it didn't become commonplace. Given the extreme complexity and delicacy of its construction, the tourbillon remains an interesting but niche feature of tour-de-fortes pocket watches. At the dawn of the wristwatch era in the 1920s, fewer than 900 tourbillon watches were likely made. And while the transition to the wrist relegated the pocket watch to history, it seemed the tourbillon was destined to accompany it.
“A pocket watch sits in a single, vertical position in your pocket, and gravity pulls it down. That’s what the tourbillon was designed for,” explains Christian Selmoni , director of style and heritage at Vacheron Constantin , a company that took until 1901 to make its first tourbillon. “But on your wrist, a watch is constantly moving in every possible position and angle. For that, the tourbillon isn’t really useful.”
In the mid-20th century, a few unique and experimental tourbillon wristwatches were nevertheless manufactured, notably by Omega and Patek Philippe . But as a significant component of wrist-based timekeeping, it was redundant. More importantly, by 1980, mechanical watchmaking had disappeared, as accurate and inexpensive battery-powered watches took over the world.
Of course, this crisis would lead to the rebirth of Swiss watchmaking as a thriving center of craftsmanship, style, ingenuity, and exclusivity; complicated watchmaking became increasingly important, and with it, the tourbillon began its unexpected resurgence.
In 1986, Audemars Piguet produced the world's first production tourbillon wristwatch, a delicate and stunning timepiece that, although extremely thin, was self-winding and whose tiny tourbillon was revealed through an opening in one corner of the oblong dial. No one thought it was terribly accurate, but as a statement of a new beginning and horological intent, it caused a sensation. In 1990, Breguet released a spectacular tourbillon wristwatch, followed by Vacheron Constantin , Jaeger-LeCoultre , and Girard-Perregaux in 1991—each of which boldly displayed the tourbillons across the face of the watch, announcing the prowess and audacity of the watchmaking concerned.
“Today, the tourbillon is truly a visual expression of the watchmaker’s art,” says Selmoni . “It’s fascinating to see it move, but you also know that even to build it, the watchmaker must have incredible skill and so many years of experience, because it can only be done by hand.”
For what is more or less the platonic ideal of the classic tourbillon wristwatch, you can turn to the elegant Traditionnelle Tourbillon Automatic 41 mm from Vacheron Constantin . The tourbillon occupies the entire lower part of the dial, with its rotating cage shaped like a Maltese cross (a Vacheron hallmark). Within it, the gold balance wheel, hairspring, and escapement perform their oscillations as the whole thing rotates. It also allows the remarkable hand-finishing techniques that are otherwise visible in the movement to be displayed on the front of the watch. Note the horizontal bridge that holds the tourbillon in place. Its curved, tapered shape is entirely crafted by hand, filing the metal before giving it a beautiful mirror-polished finish.
Want to know just how delicate the making of a tourbillon is? The tourbillon cage at the heart of Girard-Perregaux 's La Esmeralda Tourbillon contains no fewer than 80 components, yet it weighs only 0.3 grams. The watch recreates the famous and unique " Three Golden Bridges " design of Girard-Perregaux 's famous 19th-century tourbillon pocket watch series, with the tourbillon and gear train placed on a trio of enormous arrow-shaped bridges. Having established the Three Golden Bridges as one of the most important modern tourbillon executions in 1991, the brand has more recently given this model a more contemporary direction with its Flying Bridges series.
The tourbillon may be an anachronistic relic from the days of pocket watch chronometry, but Swiss manufacturers have been relentlessly pushing it in new directions. This is the case with Greubel Forsey , whose 100 or so annual watches combine opulent craftsmanship with extreme scientific research on a level no other manufacturer can match. Its GMT Quadruple Tourbillon , for example, features two sets of two tourbillons, one rotating at right angles to the other. Why? Greubel Forsey claims this improves chronometric performance, but let's be honest, the answer is also because they could. And in modern watchmaking, that's more than enough.
The potential buyer of a tourbillon today has the choice between "flying" tourbillons (in which the cage is connected to the watch on one side only and thus appears to hover above the movement) and multiple tourbillons in a single watch; multiple flying tourbillons, such as the futuristic exhibition pieces of Roger Dubuis , a brand whose modern identity was forged around the charismatic whirl of the tourbillon; and even tourbillons rotating on more than one axis and thus appearing to tumble in 3D, such as the Gyrotourbillon models of Jaeger-LeCoultre .
What you expect from a tourbillon is simply a question of the level of horological artifice you want to fit into a wristwatch. Whatever your answer, the tourbillon will surely deliver it. What Breguet himself would do with it, no one can say. But perhaps he would be amused by the fact that his invention for improving timekeeping represents today, more than any other horological invention, the moment when the achievements of watchmaking could be measured in terms of artistry rather than precision.
Text by Mr Timothy Barber
Illustration of a Vacheron Constantin Traditionnelle Tourbillon Automatic 41 mm
