The Eternal Love Affair Between Watches and Architecture
From Eric Giroud’s exoskeletal Opus 9 to Marc Berthier’s squared Hermès and Frank Lloyd Wright’s legacy-infused dials, the wrist is the smallest building site in the world.
The b/1 watch from Toledano & Chan is inspired by the windows of the Marcel Breuer-designed Sotheby’s headquarters on New York’s Upper West Side.
Source: Toledano & Chan; Alamy
Architects have long been drawn to the wristwatch — as collectors, collaborators and, occasionally, designers. Think Le Corbusier’s association with Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Reverso “Golden Ratio” in the 1930s, or Frank Gehry’s recent work for Louis Vuitton. It’s a relationship that runs deeper than aesthetics. Horology shares a fundamental obsession with architecture: resolving form and function into something that endures.
Sometimes even a single watch carries the full weight of a building, like a 1929 Patek Philippe made for Tiffany & Co. and first worn by Paul Starrett, a master builder and architect. Starrett is among the key figures responsible for the Flatiron Building, the original Penn Station and the Plaza Hotel, though he is perhaps best known for his association with the Empire State Building. His personal Patek Philippe will feature in the June 13–14 New York Watch Auction: XIV by Phillips, in association with Bacs & Russo. The auction estimate is $15,000–$30,000 and coincides with the Empire State Building’s 95th anniversary.