Urban Jürgensen Relaunches with 3 Stunning Models and the Motto: Time Kept and Spent Beautifully
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City Jürgensen, the Danish-founded, Swiss-made model, led by Kari Voutilainen, is aiming for impartial high quality degree watchmaking, however to scale.
City Jürgensen launched its rebirth, alongside three new fashions, at a gala occasion in Los Angeles over two days, demonstrating it’s a model for this second in time. If we (collectors, journalists, lovers of luxurious) agree that one of the best manufacturers mix heritage, an intense dedication to craft, and the execution of a contemporary advertising plan designed to achieve a brand new technology of watch aficionados, then the brand new City Jürgensen has received it nailed.
It’s a successful system, and it’s supported by a considerable investor.
City Jürgensen was based in Copenhagen in 1773 by Jürgen Jürgensen, a Danish watchmaker who apprenticed with Breguet in France and John Arnold in England, and made marine chronometers for the Danish navy. It’s now helmed by co-CEO Kari Voutilainen, the Finnish-born Swiss-based watchmaker, a grasp of the independents, and famend stickler for distinctive ending, together with the right execution of conventional watchmaking.
The model is now owned by an American household: co-CEO Alex Rosenfield and his father, Andy Rosenfield, who’s an completed collector, primarily based in Los Angeles. The COO is watchmaker Venla Voutilainen, who’s Kari’s daughter. It’s thus a household firm, with a stable heritage in watchmaking and, as everybody on the relaunch was breathlessly predicting, a shiny future.
UJ-1: The 250th anniversary watch
There are three relaunch fashions, one among which is a restricted version, and except for the brand new dream workforce, they’re what the thrill is all about. The UJ-1 celebrates the miniaturization of Derek Pratt’s Oval Tourbillon pocket watch with cage-mounted remontoir d’égalité in a series-production wristwatch. (British watchmaker Derek Pratt was the technical director of City Jürgensen from 1982 to 2005).
City Jürgensen oval tourbillon pocket watch from 1991 by Derek Pratt in its authentic silver case; Pratt engine-turned the dial comprised of a single piece of silver by hand himself
The again of the City Jürgensen oval tourbillon pocket watch from 1991 by Derek Pratt reveals the remontoir tourbillon with spring detent escapement; this motion is wound by key
The pocket watch that launched the motion offered at a Phillips public sale final 12 months for greater than $4 million. Voutilainen has since tailored the idea to a wristwatch. This technique presents a smoother vitality switch and as much as 30% higher energy effectivity than a standard Swiss lever escapement.
City Jürgensen UJ-1 assortment
Technically the thought is to remove variations in torque from the burden of the tourbillon carriage by dedicating a remontoir to the stability wheel. It’s a shocking piece, with a stable silver dial – silver not simply because it’s straightforward to engrave with the grain d’orge guilloché sample however as a result of silver takes the best polish, explains Voutilainen.
City Jürgensen UJ-1 in platinum
The tourbillon seems on the again, beneath a spectacular black polished metal bridge.
City Jürgensen UJ-1 motion
UJ-1 is 39.5mm in diameter and 12.2mm in thickness, with rotated teardrop lugs.
Value: CHF 368,000 (excluding VAT)
For extra info, please go to https://urbanjurgensen.com/merchandise/uj-1
The workforce will make 75 of those items and they are going to be offered on to collectors, that are naturally lined up for them. Demand already exceeds present manufacturing, which presently stands at not more than 100 watches in whole, however the model’s ambition is to ramp up manufacturing to some extent effectively past what typical impartial watch manufacturers goal for.
“We’re going to develop as rapidly as we humanly can, hoping that the demand is there,” says Alex Rosenfield. “However we need to be a model, and we need to attain a sure scale. We all know that what we’re making is dear and uncommon, however we need to really feel like a model and never like a watchmaker-led impartial …. though we’re a watchmaker led impartial. We don’t need to have an eight 12 months wait checklist. There are methods we expect we will create some scale. Our purpose, and that is very a lot a purpose, can be to achieve the size of about 1,000 watches a 12 months inside 5 years.”
UJ-2: Three-hand watch with double wheel pure escapement
The time-only UJ2 comprises a manual-wound motion, the model’s signature caliber, with an structure impressed by the pocket watch actions made by City Jürgensen’s son, Jules. It has a double-wheel pure escapement, which eliminates friction, and an outsized stability wheel that beats at 2.5 Hz/18,000 vph.
City Jürgensen UJ-2 with blue dials in pink gold and platinum
There are two variations: one in platinum and the opposite in rose gold, with a selection of silver or blue dial for each fashions.
City Jürgensen UJ-2 motion
City Jürgensen UJ-2 assortment
The massive seconds hand dial is offset at 5 o’clock, and the ability reserve indicator is positioned on an arc at 12 o’clock. It measures 39mm x 10.9mm.
Value: CHF 105,000 (excluding VAT)
For extra info, please go to https://urbanjurgensen.com/merchandise/uj-2
UJ-3 The double wheel pure escapement perpetual calendar instantaneous moon part
The UJ3 is a perpetual calendar, a collaboration between Voutilainen and famous Swiss watchmaker Andreas Strehler. The motion additionally options the double-wheel pure escapement, together with an instantaneous moon part indicator correct to an astounding at some point variation each 14,000 years.
City Jürgensen UJ-3
It’s a bit thicker, at 39mm x 13.9mm, and is being made in platinum or rose gold, with 75 items altogether.
Value: CHF 168,000 (excluding VAT)
For extra info, please go to https://urbanjurgensen.com/merchandise/uj-3
Each the UJ-2 and the UJ-3 are a part of the common catalog however will naturally be restricted by manufacturing capability. “We’ll take orders for these watches that may embody the entire UJ-1s, quite a lot of UJ-2s and a handful of UJ-3s,” says Rosenfield. “And we are going to do pre-orders on these. After which if there’s further curiosity, which we’d be humbled and grateful if there’s, we can have a wait checklist.”
The dials say Copenhagen, relatively than Swiss, even if the watches are made in Switzerland. “The Danish identification is simply so essential and distinctive to City Jürgensen,” explains Rosenfield. “And we wished to have a good time that. However they’re Swiss made. We are saying it’s Swiss engineering and a Danish Spirit.”
Rosenfield, whose background is in vogue and media, was chargeable for crafting the visible identification and branding of the reborn City Jürgensen, which incorporates the event of a portrait sequence, “Time Properly Spent,” created in collaboration with celebrated vogue photographer and City Jürgensen’s pictures director, Ellen von Unwerth.
The sequence breaks the normal format of watch imagery, making a month-to-month sequence of expressive portraits that present a swath of inventive people deeply immersed of their passions, underscoring the model’s core perception in “time stored and spent superbly.”
Within the first installment, James Turrell, the sunshine sculptor, is proven at his monumental set up, Roden Crater.
“We’re spending quite a lot of time and quite a lot of vitality on constructing out a social identification that I believe feels contemporary and enjoyable and seems like this model universe that we hope to ask folks into,” says Rosenfield. “With the portrait sequence, we’re bringing in a special individual every month from vastly completely different walks of life, completely different ages, completely different ranges of celeb, individuals who can join with completely different audiences.
Our motto is ‘Time Saved and Spent Fantastically.’ Time spent superbly, to us, is crafting watches with the only real goal of perfection for the enjoyment of doing so, and the pleasure that comes from sporting a watch constructed this fashion.”
For extra info, please go to https://urbanjurgensen.com/
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