“I can’t find a watch to match your jewellery” a lady customer said to Walter Weinbeck. It was enough to set him on a new path.

Goldsmithery has been Walter’s calling from early adulthood. He was only twenty-five years old when he left the studio of the renowned designer Paul Binder to start his own venture. As the last notable ambassador of the Zurich school of goldsmiths inspired by the Bauhaus art movement, Walter has been running his own studio at Grossmünsterplatz for over twenty years now. He lived up to the dream of his 25 year old self. But can he live up to the dreams of this lady customer and design a watch?

Walter Weinbeck

This challenge gave Walter a new momentum. Countless hours of design, sketch after sketch, meeting after meeting with watch manufacturers in Geneva ...he was after a design that was more intricate and refined than it would appear at first glance. He wanted diamonds to symbolise the hours of the day, but that was just a starting point. In his first watch symbolically named No. 1, twelve diamonds move freely thanks to a sophisticated and patented turn-tilt mechanism.
Recessed behind sapphire crystal and enveloped in concave mirrors, they rotate with each sweep of the hand, dancing gracefully around their axis. Like private dancers, they dazzle for the pleasure of 12 wearers only as it is a limited edition of 12. The watch is not for show but rather for personal glow.
Young Walter dreamed of becoming an artist, but on being told it was a career without future, he buried that dream. He became a craftsman instead. Yet his designs always drew inspiration from James Turell’s light installations to Anish Kapoor’s artistic manipulations of materials and space. Indeed, it is hard to look at the positioning of the diamonds in the No. 1 and not think of Turell’s Aten Rein installation at the Guggenheim Museum in New York (2013) or Kapoor’s sky mirror permanent installation in Nottingham.

Weinbeck No.1 is available in rose and white gold with 12 cut diamonds totalling 3.0 to 3.5 ct. Diameter 36 mm, mechanical Swiss movement, personalized engraving possible on winding rotor. Other gold tones and platinum are available by special order.

Weinbeck’s second watch - Grace - appears graciously understated at first glance, yet with movement it becomes playfully bright as the light is reflected from the 24 diamonds surrounded by mirrors and tastefully concealed around the dial. A true delight for those fascinated with light.

Merging light, space and time, Walter designed a watch that no only offers a graceful, intimate dance but is also a piece of art in itself. With No.1 Walter has finally lived up to his unspoken dream. He has become an ARTIST!

www.weinbeck.ch