The sector of effective watchmaking could be divided into two primary segments — sophisticated watches through which mechanical complexity is pursued as a type of artwork or excessive precision timekeepers that uphold the legacy of scientific inquiry. Nonetheless, there are outliers that depart completely from these defining narratives, the place mechanics are put on the service of aesthetics for leisure worth, as a pure outgrowth of mechanical watchmaking as much less of a necessity.
Beginning in 2000, this explicit wave of watches emerged, predominantly from impartial watchmakers, defying horological historical past which, in broad strokes, has been outlined by the precept of perform dictating type. Though many years have handed since, there are some watches that also stay so distinctive of their emotional dedication to how we understand and attempt to seize time that they’re value revisiting. One in all these watches is the Upside Down by Ludovic Ballouard, a former watchmaker at F.P. Journe who, within the thick of the monetary disaster in 2009, determined to set out on his personal and created a watch that will emphasize the significance of the current.
Amidst the worldwide media buzz surrounding the inventory market crash, the place a relentless circulation of declining figures dominated the headlines, Ballouard contemplated the notion that even when only a single determine had the power to defy the downward development and stand tall, it might be ample to maintain the momentum of life itself. Thus, excluding the present hour, the remaining 11 numerals on the dial of the watch are persistently positioned the other way up, moreover serving as a reminder of the restricted affect we’ve over the previous and future.
To make sure that the 12 hour markers may independently rotate on their axes and keep in place whatever the watch’s orientation, it might have been essential to make use of 12 torsion springs and 12 snapping jumpers. Nonetheless, this strategy would have demanded extreme power for such a small motion. Moreover, the inclusion of 12 pivotable parts already reduces the out there area for the mainspring barrel, naturally making it smaller than that of a daily motion with the identical dimensions. Thus, Ballouard determined to implement the Maltese cross system.
A Change of Perspective: Ludovic Ballouard Caliber LB01
The motion is the hand wound LB01 that was developed in-house. Its wheel prepare design relies on the Peseux 7001. Evidently, your entire structure of the motion needed to be designed and produced from scratch, in order that the baseplate and bridges can accommodate the Maltese cross mechanism that’s not a module however fully built-in within the motion. The wheel prepare is encircled by 12 Maltese crosses to which the hour markers are affixed. This differs from the Opus XIII that Ballouard developed for Harry Winston in 2013, because the latter had a a lot smaller motion and thus makes use of six-point star wheels as a substitute of Maltese crosses. Because the hour numerals should carry out a 180° rotation on the prime of every hour, a good variety of branches or factors is required in each cases.
In watchmaking, Maltese crosses are extra generally used as a stopwork mechanism, stopping the watch from reaching the much less optimum portion of the torque curve, or as a element that encodes the intercalary year in a perpetual calendar. In each cases, they fulfil an important function within the perform of a watch. However within the Upside Down, 12 of them are utilized to attain a purely aesthetic, emotionally evocative illustration of time, for which a patent was granted.
Your entire show mechanism is pushed by the middle wheel because it makes a full rotation each 60 minutes. A snail cam, rotatably mounted on the middle wheel’s pivot, is sampled by a lever with a pawl arm. The lever is held below the strain of a spring and accumulates energy throughout its ascending arc, and because it falls off the best level of the cam and lands on the bottom, its pawl finish drives a hoop with inner ratchet enamel, advancing it by 30°. This ring can also be designed with 4 exterior enamel in order that it is ready to drive two consecutive Maltese crosses such that on the prime of the hour, the earlier hour numeral performs a 180° rotation downwards and the following hour rotates by the identical worth upwards. By having 4 enamel organized at a pitch diameter six instances that of the Maltese cross, the mechanism permits the Maltese cross to rotate by an angle equal to 2 successive half-turns.
The particular ratio of 1 to six between the pitch diameter of the toothed ring and every Maltese cross is chosen to match the relative angular rotations of those parts. The toothed ring, being bigger in measurement, permits for the specified rotational motion of the Maltese cross, with every ratchet tooth controlling a rotation of 30°, whereas the Maltese cross itself rotates by 180°. A sight to behold in individual, the synchronized rotation of two consecutive digits happens instantaneously, due to the gradual buildup of potential power within the spring, accumulating throughout the revolution of the minute hand over a span of 60 minutes. Subsequently, this power is swiftly launched by the cam.
The motion has a diameter of 35mm and consists of 228 elements. When cased up, the watch measures 41mm huge with a slim peak of simply 11mm. The case is completely polished such that it doesn’t detract from the distinctive time show. It options huge lugs with a pronounced curvature, enabling it to take a seat low and near the wrist.
During the last 14 years, the Upside Down has been produced in quite a few restricted and bespoke editions, that includes quite a lot of stone dials together with mother-of-pearl, meteorite, lapis lazuli and aventurine. Nonetheless, they’ve been produced in exceptionally small portions, usually below 10 items per restricted version, making them a particularly uncommon sight total regardless of the range. At present, Ballouard produces solely 25 items a yr along with his different watch, the Half Time, of which a mere 5 models are made a yr.
So far as unconventional shows go, few can rival the delicate allure of the Upside Down. At a cursory look, it masquerades as a regular time-only watch, however upon nearer inspection, its sheer technical whimsy and philosophical aspirations come to mild. It’s a type of uncommon cases {that a} watch not solely transcends its utility as a watch, but in addition turns into a delicate exploration of our relationship with time itself. For that and the truth that it may be had in completely distinctive and unique variations, it’s undoubtedly value pursuing.
