The Astar was conceived and designed by the renowned Swiss architect Rino Brodbeck. The watch itself was made by Janvier SA, a firm founded by Vianney Halter, one of the most imaginative watchmakers of the early 21st century and winner of the Grand Prix de Genève Innovation Prize in 2013.

It was manufactured in Sainte-Croix, at the heart of Switzerland’s watchmaking region, with all the care and consideration demanded by the craft.

Fifteen editions and already a museum piece
Inside is a mechanical caliber with automatic winding offering a maximum autonomy of 38 hours. It is based on an ETA movement that breaks down the hour with great precision thanks to its 28,800 vph beat. This outstanding timepiece is already a rarity: only 14 collectors will be able to acquire one, because one of the fifteen numbered editions manufactured, number 11, to be precise, has already become part of the inventory of the Musée d’Horlogerie de Genève.

This stainless steel timekeeper, whose impeccable roundness embraces something close to total minimalism, has a diameter of 40 millimeters and a height of 10 millimeters. As for the colors and materials, the dial is in a space-like blue, while gold (the hour disc), silver (the minute disc) and diamonds (for the seconds) have replaced the traditional hands.

Time’s symbolic power
The Astar by the Swiss architect Rino Brodbeck evokes the cosmic order.
It is more than just an instrument to keep time tied to one’s wrist. This watch also takes on a more spiritual role, namely that of establishing a symbiosis with the astral universe, of being able to reach a perception of infinity that allows us to think, love, create and act.

Human beings are not the masters of time. The world they have created imposes a momentum that is in total dissonance with the very astral rhythm they are subjected to. And because the hour, the minute, the second are mere social conventions and ways to control one’s availability, a watch just had to be invented with hours that refer to the Sun, minutes to the Moon, and seconds to Venus. So in the final analysis, the Astar by Rino Brodbeck is the mirror of a celestial system that connects the past with modern times. It’s a watch that literally reaches for the stars, fraught, as it is, with inspired symbolism.

Source: ASTARWATCH / Rino Brodbeck