“You employ stone, wood and concrete, and with these materials you build houses and palaces: That is construction. Ingenuity is at work. But suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good. I am happy and I say: ‘This is beautiful.’ That is architecture. Art enters in.”

Vers une architecture, Le Corbusier, ed. G. Crès, 1923

Our friends at GP shared with us some more pictures of the exciting new Le Corbusier Trilogy of watches.  GP has a history of great watch + art (architecture) collaborations.  I particularly like this one because I am a student of art history and architecture.  Le Corbusier (né Charles-Edouard Jeanneret) is, of course, one of the most influential and important architects of all time.  Not only was he a pioneer of modern design, but he was an urbanist who was very concerned about the living conditions and quality of spaces inhabited by denizens of large, crowded cities.  Le Corbusier understood that great architecture, like all great art (including watches), elevates our spirits; enriches our souls.  



The man himself, Le Corbusier.



Le Corbusier at work.

Like us all, Le Corbusier was undoubtedly influenced in some fashion by the place of his birth and the town where he grew up.  High in the Jura Mountains of Switzerland, 1,000m above the sea, and a few kilometers east of France, sits the small town of La Chaux-de-Fonds — for centuries the wellspring of an almost unbelievable congruence of genius.



La Chaux-de-Fonds (photo from Wikipedia).

Among those born here: Le Corbusier, acclaimed automaker Louis Chevrolet; and poet/novelist Blaise Cendrars, who was an integral writer in the modernist movement.  The aesthetic movement L’Art Nouveau was refined in La Chaux-de-Fonds — as the old village gave way to a modern city at the start of the 20th century.  "Style Sapin," a regional Art Nouveau variant, emerged here, and was exclusive to the burgeoning industrial watchmaking center.  The beauty and ingenuity of La Chaux-de-Fonds' architecture, and its urban plan have led to its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Girard-Perregaux, in cooperation with Foundation Le Corbusier, celebrates the genius inherent to La Chaux-de-Fonds by arranging for their gifted watchmakers to employ gold, sapphire crystal, steel and even concrete to reinterpret the work of the great Modernist in a series of exceptional new timepieces.  This sublime project is the quintessence of more than a century of communal history between the Jeanneret and Girard-Perregaux families. Mere happenstance? Hardly. It is, rather, serendipity at its most poignant — the seemingly inevitable result when genius takes up residence in close proximity to genius. The very nature, in other words, of La Chaux-de-Fonds.
   
Le Corbusier’s life took him well beyond the shadow of the Jura, of course; he traveled the world designing buildings — and, in some cases, entire cities. Fittingly, he was part of the multinational team of architects that designed the headquarters of the United Nations Secretariat Building in Manhattan — a metaphor, in glass, reinforced concrete and steel, for his own global citizenship.

The Girard-Perregaux Le Corbusier Trilogy, however, reflects the three places that most embodied the concept of home to the man himself, who once observed that “the home should be the treasure chest of living”: La Chaux-de-Fonds, Paris and Marseille.

The model selected by Girard-Perregaux for the basis of the Le Corbusier Trilogy is the Vintage 1945, the year Le Corbusier published one of his most famous works, Les Trois Etablissements Humains (The Three Human Establishments) and devised his anthropometric scale of proportions the Modulor.  Le Corbusier described the Modular as a "range of harmonious measurements to suit the human scale, universally applicable to architecture and to mechanical things."


And now onto the three special watches in the Le Corbusier Trilogy.

Vintage 1945 Le Corbusier — La Chaux-de-Fonds




In a marvelous coincidence, Charles-Edouard Jeanneret’s hometown, La Chaux-de-Fonds, happens to be the world capital of watchmaking. Before the world knew him by his pseudonym, Le Corbusier, the young Charles-Edouard spent his formative years in the town’s School of Art, training as a sculptor and engraver.

Inlaid Mother-of-Pearl Dial
Girard-Perregaux’s craftsmen pay tribute to an early Le Corbusier work by faithfully reproducing it in a bas-relief of mother-of-pearl — a nod to both the piece itself and to Le Corbusier’s beginnings as a sculptor and engraver.

Seven exacting days are required to produce each dial, requiring mastery of multiple skills: design, sculpture, polishing and varnishing. The foremost challenge was to preserve the integrity of the original work’s five colors — necessitating considerable patience and meticulous attention to detail.

CASE

Material: Pink gold
Dimensions: 36.20 x 35.25 mm
Crystal: Anti-reflective sapphire
Case Back: Sapphire crystal, secured by four screws
Water Resistance: 30 meters

MOVEMENT

Girard-Perregaux GP3300-0078, automatic
Calibre: 11½ ”’
Frequency: 28,800 vibrations/hour (4 Hz)
Jewels: 26
Power Reserve: Min. 46 hours
Functions: Hour, minute
Limited To: Five pieces
Reference: 25880-52-103-HKBA



Original inspiration for the first piece in the Le Corbusier Trilogy.

Some making-of photos detailing the meticulous and painstaking creation of the mother-of-pearl dial follow.





 




Vintage 1945 Le Corbusier — Paris



(Don't you LOVE the strap?  I adore it!)

Charles-Edouard Jeanneret arrived in Paris in 1917. Three years later, he assumed the nom d’artiste “Le Corbusier.” His timing was propitious; Paris was becoming the global center of the cultural movement known as ‘Modernism’, and Le Corbusier’s painting and architecture alike embraced it, emphasizing elemental geometric forms — “space and light and order,” as he put it.  Although he’s now celebrated along with Mies Van der Rohe or Walter Gropius as a pioneer of modern architecture, Le Corbusier applied his theories about shape to the decorative arts as well. In 1929, along with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand, Le Corbusier debuted Le Grand Confort at Paris’s Salon d’Automne. Among the pieces shown was his iconic furniture, constructed from a then-unique combination of steel, tanned leather and rawhide.

Metal Dial
The second limited-edition Girard-Perregaux timepiece in this series commemorates Le Corbusier’s contributions to the decorative arts by focusing on materials — pairing a steel case with a cowhide strap to evoke the Le Corbusier chaise longue. The hand-engraved dial reflects his Modulor system of architectural proportion, based on the male figure (human scale) and the “Golden Ratio,” as well as his applied perception of light.

CASE

Material: Steel
Dimensions: 36.20 x 35.25 mm
Crystal: Anti-reflective sapphire
Case Back: Sapphire crystal, secured by four screws
Water Resistance: 30 meters

MOVEMENT

Girard-Perregaux GP3300-0078, automatic
Calibre: 11½ ”’
Frequency: 28,800 vibrations/hour (4 Hz)
Jewels: 26
Power Reserve: Minimum 46 hours
Functions: Hour, minute
Limited To: Five pieces
Reference: 25880-11-102-HKBA



The famous chair which inspired the second watch in the Le Corbusier Trilogy.  This chair may seem commonplace now, but it was earth-shattering upon its debut.  The strong design still seems fresh, and modern today.  That's a hallmark of great design -- does it translate well across time?  Does it remain relevant from a visual and design perspective decades after inception?  In this case, the answer is a resounding, YES!



Classic Le Corbusier!

Hand-engraving the metal dial below.




Preparing to encase the watches.




The superb dial causes light to dance in unexpectedly beautiful ways.





Vintage 1945 Le Corbusier — Marseille

Arguably Le Corbusier’s most important late work — and certainly his first significant postwar structure — is the Cité Radieuse (“Radiant City”), an Unité d’Habitation (“Housing Unit”) in Marseille, France. Although it was conceptualized earlier, the Marseille building was built from rough-cast reinforced concrete (steel and concrete) — a signature Le Corbusier material — between 1947 and 1952 to help alleviate a severe housing shortage at that time. The colossal 12-story complex accommodates some 1,600 residents and was the inspiration for several similar Unités d’Habitation throughout France, as well as in Berlin — all designed by Le Corbusier and given the same utilitarian name. The Unité d’Habitation was a prime example of the Modulor philosophy — and the design and proportions of the Marseille watch dial are an homage to the Modulor anthropometric scale.

Concrete Dial
We end, appropriately, where we began: with careful attention to raw materials — in this instance, concrete — that become stirring works of art. For this last component of the Le Corbusier Trilogy, Girard-Perregaux developed a concrete dial requiring three days to pour, dry and meticulously hand-finish. Concrete is an exceptionally uncommon material in watchmaking now, as it was in construction when Le Corbusier used it to build Cité Radieuse. The result is an unparalleled interpretation of Le Corbusier: a seamless blend of watchmaking and architecture.


CASE

Material: Steel
Dimensions: 36.20 x 35.25 mm
Crystal: Anti-reflective sapphire
Case Back: Sapphire crystal, secured by four screws
Water Resistance: 30 meters

MOVEMENT

Movement: Girard-Perregaux GP3300-0078, automatic
Calibre: 11½ ”’
Frequency: 28,800 vibrations/hour (4 Hz)
Jewels: 26
Power Reserve: Minimum 46 hours
Functions: Hour, minute
Limited To: Five pieces
Reference: 25880-11-101-HKBA



This is my favorite of the three Le Corbusier Trilogy pieces!  I think the concrete dial is wonderful, and inspired!



The building that served to inspire the last of the Le Corbusier Trilogy watches.

Prepping to pour the concrete.




Cleaning the concrete dial.  Creating the dial takes three days.




Adding the hands after the concrete has been finished.



  Below, a short video from Girard-Perregaux highlighting this collection and the works of Le Corbusier which inspired it. 



It's very interesting to see the watchmakers at work in the footage.  I particularly enjoyed the insight into the creation of the Vintage 1945 Le Corbusier — Marseille (the concrete variant).

Thank you to our friends at Girard-Perregaux for sharing these materials.  This is one of the most interesting and beautifully realized collaborations between the work of a renowned artistic figure and a watch manufacture that I have encountered.

Cheers,
Daos