The independent watchmaker celebrates its 20th anniversary with the launch of a new timepiece. But with it they also say goodbye to one of their famous complications.

When the team over at Urwerk celebrates, there are no fireworks, cake or candles. Instated, to mark its 20th birthday, the independent watchmaking company has presented us with the UR-T8.

The newest addition to their repertoire is priced at a hefty 100,000 Swiss francs and is made available in an initial series of only 60 watches. And like all of the brand’s previous releases, it’s a fine example of avant-garde watchmaking.

So the core concept behind this watch is not celebration, but rather transformation. With the UR-T8, the brand has effectively deconstructed - and modernized - the idea of the Reverso watch, made popular by Jaeger-LeCoultre of the past.

More precisely, a series of precise actions unlocks the case from its cradle, flips it over and returns it to protect the time beneath a titanium shield. Squeezing the two buttons on the side of the case again releases it, to be rotated around its axis and clicked it back into place to return to the present time.

Just like that, the watch can transform into a mystery object on the wrist. In that form, it’s even hard to guess that it could be a wristwatch, looking more like some prehistoric armour. But despite its intimidating looks, the watch is deceptively welcoming.

The brand’s designer and co-founder Martin Frei explains that the idea behind the timepiece is to entice the user to engage with it:

“The huge crown, the organically shaped sapphire-crystal glass, the textured case that invites your touch, a strong personality and a recognizable visual signature.”

A technical feature unique to the brand is the pneumatic control of the self-winding system on this watch. A gilded spinning vane connected to the winding rotor absorbs any sudden or violent movements of the rotor without compromising its inner workings.

The watch also sports a new version of Urwerk’s trademark wandering-hour indication — “the most intuitive way of telling the time” according to the brand. The 12 hours in groups of four on a three-armed carousel successively sweep across the scale of 60 minutes to show the time both digitally and analogically.

In a way, this watch is the end of an era, despite being a celebratory mode. During the first 20 years of existence, the brand’s watches were all about the wandering hour display.

What will be next? Well, the rest of the story has yet to be written but whatever it is, you can be sure that Urwerk will do it in style.