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A Solitary Watchmaker: Bernhard Zwinz.

The silence is deafening. Not a sound; not a whisper, Bernhard Zwinz is a man of silent passion. His passion is watchmaking and he has settled himself in the Vallée de Joux to pursue his craft at an atelier that bears his name. The last time I met Bernhard I was on a Purist’s tour of Jaeger LeCoultre (http://www.p178host.com/jlcgallery/jlctrip04p2.html) and Bernhard was working with Phillipe Dufour on the Simplicity series. Quiet, softly spoken, and unassuming, Bernhard obviously held the respect of his peers and was seen as knowledgeable and skilled. To be trusted by one of Switzerland’s acknowledged master watchmakers to help construct and finish his watches, he was the sorcerer’s apprentice. However, there comes a day when the apprentice becomes the master, and for Bernhard, that time is now.



A stone’s throw from his former employer (Dufour), and almost equal distance to the Jaeger LeCoultre and Audemars Piguet manufactures, Bernhard has set up his own atelier and home in a small house in L’Orient. L’Orient might be a speck on the map, but the name of the street is apt; the Vallée de Joux is the central hub to Swiss watchmaking. For the last century and a half, the valley running along the edge of the Swiss-France border has been synonymous with the highest calibre of watchmaking, some of the very finest mechanical watches you can find. The stillness and the quiet life of the Valley are qualities that lend themselves to watchmaking, where concentration and skill are key requirements. All the history, parts suppliers, and specialists are in this Valley.


[Measuring tool for plates]


[Tool for measuring and sizing holes for jewels]


[Test samples for emery from London – could not resist photographing this one!]

Even among such a concentration of watchmaking knowledge and skill, Bernhard is set apart. I went to visit him at his home, his atelier, and the majority of the house is given over to his workshop and an ad-hoc museum of watchmaking tools and products from yesteryear. You see, Bernhard is a man on a mission. His mission, which he has obviously accepted whole heartedly, is to take the Vallee de Joux watchmaking back to its glory days of the 1880’s to 1920’s. From the times when the small valley produced watches that were the world’s standard on chronometric precision, where the finishing and design of the calibre’s were second to none, and where the skill from the timing of the mechanism set the watches apart as unique. As I walked around the upstairs of the small house, there were shelves of small tools that were once used for jewel setting, anglage finishing, measuring the depth of the plate. Bernhard not only collects such tools but uses them to expand his knowledge on how to finish movements. Bernhard lives and breathes watchmaking – literally, he lives with the machines and desks that are his work.


[The museum that is Bernhard’s home – antique and more modern instruments for watchmaking]


A quality micrometer with precision to 1/1000th millimetre]

Dufour was only one of the stepping stones on Bernhard’s learning curve. His early career after finishing his watchmaking diploma in Karlstein was Vacheron Constantin and Roger Dubuis, before moving to Chronoswiss. At Chronoswiss he met Andreas Strehler and the two remain friends to this day. Even now, Bernhard works on watches for Andreas Strehler, as well as other brands, but in particular, for Greubel Forsey and Max Busser and Friends (MB&F). Bernhard’s forte is to work on and complete the super complex movements; in the case of Greubel Forsey, it’s the Quadruple Tourbillon; for MB&F Bernhard is working on the remaining HM1’s.







That Bernhard is now a master watchmaker is testimony to his dedication. His training at the “Watch School” was in clocks and the end exam was to create and finish a wall clock. The clock still sits on the wall of his atelier. He had to learn the minutiae of the watch; the parts, the finishing, and the design of the watch. His interest and area study was initially the pocket watches produced by Vacheron in the 30’s and 40’s. Much of the beauty, aesthetics and functional engineering of the watches from that time has been somewhat forgotten. The small details that the trained eye would delight over; but for whom the untrained eye would pass over. Finishing that even now helps maintain the movement’s precision and value as a timekeeper.

I asked Bernhard about the time with Dufour, how they met, and how Bernhard was hired. Bernhard was with Dufour for 3 years from 2001. At the time he had been offered a position with Breguet, but had just about decided on turning down the position, and going back to Germany. He went along to an interview with Dufour. Dufour had a set of questions in a booklet, and Bernhard answered as best he could. A week went by and Bernhard was called back. Although he had never made one before, Dufour asked Bernhard to make a Breguet overcoil spring. Bernhard did the best he could; Dufour was impressed, and the position was his.

As hard as he tried to get away from the area, the Vallée de Joux kept calling Bernhard back to the place. And in spending time in the Vallée, Bernhard learned an appreciation of watchmaking as a science and art, and in particular the history of watches from the area. It is this place that now houses his atelier and where his work now continues. The work is a continuation of what he has learned and going forward where he thinks it should return. It is what he has learned, and the embodiment of that knowledge, that I will cover in forthcoming articles. This is the first of three articles on Bernhard. Stay tuned as the best is yet to come.



As I walked around Bernhard’s atelier I noticed a number of model tortoise sitting on top of machines, or on shelves. I then noticed that the paperwork for Bernhard’s new atelier had a tortoise on it too. Why? I asked. Apparently the first one was bought by a friend of his and the symbol just stuck; his friend argued it suited his character: stubborn and knowing exactly what he wants. Bernhard likes it to Aesop’s fable of the tortoise and the hare: he would rather take his time to get something exactly right rather than rush to get something done. I am guessing that no one needs reminding that the tortoise won.



Andrew H This message has been edited by SJX on 2010-11-17 06:21:14 This message has been edited by 219 on 2010-11-22 05:19:35

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