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The little town of Schaffhausen in Switzerland has been one of the focal centres of Swiss watchmaking for years, including the birthplace of iconic Swiss watch companies like the International Watch Company (IWC). In this town, Felix Baumgartner was born into a watchmaking family. A little over 26 km from Schaffhausen, the city of Winterthur was the place where Martin Frei was born. Years later, these two visionaries would join forces to form the pioneering watch company of their dreams: Urwerk.
Being a part of a respected watchmaking family, it should come as no surprise that Felix Baumgartner took up this line of work. After working for his father in their family workshop, this young watchmaker graduated from the prestigious watchmaking school in Solothurn in 1995. The slightly elder Martin Frei took inspiration from his art teacher mother and pursued a career in graphic designing after graduating from art school in the early 1990s. However, it wouldn’t be until 1995 that Frei and Baumgartner would meet.
Realising that they both wanted to create something for the future in the horological world, Frei and Baumgartner joined hands in establishing Urwerk in 1997. Despite being founded to produce avant-garde designs and futuristic watches, the name bears significant historical roots. The first part of the name comes from the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur, where time was first conceptualised in its present form. On the other hand, ‘werk’ is a German term meaning to work, create and evolve - a word that perfectly encapsulates the philosophy at the heart of Urwerk.
Currently having workshops in the Swiss cities of Zürich and Geneva, Urwerk had a tough time getting its foot off the ground. During its first year as a watchmaking company in1997, Frei and Baumgartner came up with two futuristic watch models, the UR-101 and the UR-102. Despite being lauded by the critics, the watches failed to be a popular choice among buyers. As a result, Urwerk was back to square one.
Yet, this setback did not deter the visionary founders of this company, and they soon went back to the drawing board to come up with better designs for watch lovers. After a hiatus of six years full of hardships and struggles, the company came up with the iconic minimalistic watch, the UR-103.01. This was followed by the legendary Opus 5 collection made in collaboration with Harry Winston. Since then, the company's fortunes have changed, and Urwerk is now considered a pioneer in the horological world with mind-boggling designs and innovations.
Since its inception almost 25 years ago, Urwerk has been producing technologically advanced watches with exemplary designs. At present, the company has three collections of watches: the UR-Chronometry, the UR-Satellite, and the UR-Special Projects.
The UR-Satellite collection has four intricately designed watches, namely the UR-100, the UR-105, the UR-106, and the UR-220. The UR-106 is an exclusive watch designed by Urwerk for females, while the UR-220 is a limited-edition watch of which only 15 models are produced every year.
The UR-Chronometry collection has three watches that push the limits on extremely sophisticated and accurate chronometry watches. The collection offers the AMC, the EMC and the EMC Timehunter, with all three watches being critically acclaimed for providing accurate data and precise time. Finally, the UR-Special Projects collection has five specially crafted watches, including the UR-112, which was launched in October 2021.
Such a strong collection has led to Urwerk being endorsed by celebrities all around the world. Through its futuristic offerings that provide precision and technological advances, the horological world has been enthralled by the company, which has brought the future so close to us.