Credits: Article and images by Sergio Galanti @ Quill & Pad. See the original article here - https://quillandpad.com/2024/04/20/tourbillons-pros-and-cons/
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The Queen of complications or a historical naivety?
Collectors and enthusiasts often refer to the tourbillon as the queen of complications. While some of them see the tourbillon as a supreme expression of horological craftsmanship, others view it as anachronistic and a historical ingenuity that solved a chronometric performance problem of a specific historical moment. Its confinement to the shelfs of horological history became apparent with the advent of the wristwatch, in the early 20th century.
The constantly movement human wrist created its own tourbillon, capable of continuously changing the orientation of the watch, and achieving a similar result as Breguet’s rotating tourbillon cage. At this point, the tourbillon lost its usefulness and importance and the production of tourbillon watches became rare. That was so until the quartz revolution of the 1970s and early 1980s, when a revival of the tourbillon took place.
To compete with quartz watches, several Swiss manufacturers took refuge at the high end of the market and shifted their focus from precision to technical creativity and luxury. This renaissance of mechanical watchmaking after the quartz revolution brought new attention to the tourbillon as a haute horlogerie product, prized for the elaborate craftsmanship its construction required and for its fascinating aesthetics.
The tourbillon was no longer created to be useful, but to be captivating to look at.
Thus new tourbillons were created, more complex, more impressive, and more beautiful. The tourbillon entered the 21st century as a symbol of an exercise in innovation, an investment in the market positioning of luxury brands, and an ongoing quest to push the limits of ingenuity in miniaturized mechanical engineering.
More complex and more mesmerizing
The tourbillon created by Breguet revolved around a single axis. In 1977, English watchmaker Anthony Randall invented the double-axis tourbillon and installed it in a carriage watch.
In 1986, Audemars Piguet developed the first automatic tourbillon, with caliber 2870, which is often referred to as a milestone in the renaissance of mechanical watchmaking, following the quartz revolution.
In 2003, the German watchmaker Thomas Prescher developed the first flying tourbillon with a double axis in a pocket watch, characterized by a cage rotating around two axes, both rotating once per minute. Then outdoing himself, the following year Prescher presented the first triple-axis tourbillon in a wristwatch.
Also in 2004, Greubel Forsey presented their Double Tourbillon 30˚ , featuring a tourbillon cage that rotated once per minute and inserted at 30˚ inside another cage that rotated once every four minutes.
Greubel Forsey’s Double Tourbillon Technique remains the world’s most accurate wristwatch as certified when it won the 2011 International Chronometry Competition in Le Locle, Switzerland.
Taking the concept of multi-axis rotation to a new level, Jaeger-LeCoultre introduced the Gyrotourbillon, in 2004, featuring an additional axis of rotation perpendicular to the main axis. In a true demonstration of technical expertise and precision, Jaeger-LeCoultre later introduced several variants of the Gyrotourbillon that included major complications such as the perpetual calendar and the equation of time.
Last but not least, in 2005, Greubel Forsey presented their Quadruple Tourbillon with two double Tourbillons functioning independently of each other.
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Credits: Article and images by Sergio Galanti @ Quill & Pad. See the original article here - https://quillandpad.com/2024/04/20/tourbillons-pros-and-cons/