A.Lange & Söhne, Visiting The Manufacture
We are near Germany’s border with the Czech Republic, in the region of Saxony, where there is a small town of 6,657 souls called Glashütte. Curiously, the landscapes are reminiscent of those in Swiss valleys, where watch manufactures alternate with alpine pastures and cow pastures.
To get here we had to make about a half-hour drive after landing in the city of Dresden, the Florence of the Elbe. Before the 1945 bombings, the city was considered among the most beautiful in Germany, thanks to its elegant Baroque-style buildings. Since the 1970s, reconstruction work has begun, still visible today from the facades of the buildings, which feature stones of two colors: sand ones, and black ones, salvaged from the rubble of the bombings.
Semperoper’s 5 Minute Clock
Dresden was the first stop on our trip-and not just because it was the nearest airport. Opera lovers will already know this, but this is home to the Semperoper, overlooking Theaterplatz and named after the architect Gottfried Semper who designed the first building in 1841.
Upon entering the auditorium, a five-minute clock is housed above the stage. It was developed specifically for the proscenium by the court clockmaker and mathematician-physicist from Dresden, Johann Christian Friedrich Gutkaes. What makes this clock truly unique is the way it displays time, as it tells time digitally, well before the advent of any kind of display. The left box shows the hours, while the right box shows the minutes, which rotate at intervals of 5.
You may be wondering why I have gone to such lengths on the description of this watch. The reason lies in the fact that one of A. Lange & Söhne’s most iconic watches, the Zeitwerk, is basically a reproduction of it in a mechanical wristwatch! We will go into the details of this “mechanical digital” model later, during a tour of the manufacture.
Glashütte
When you arrive in Glashütte, you drive along a road about a kilometer long, at the end of which the village ends. In this space all the manufactures of Glashütte are concentrated, which you see parading one in a row to the next from Nomos, Glashütte Original, Tutima, Moritz Grossmann to A. Lange & Söhne, which seems to delineate the ultimate boundary of the village. Everyone here is in the watchmaking business, and their style is truly unmistakable.
Watchmaking in Glashütte
If you are passionate about wine and haute cuisine, you are familiar with the concept of terroir. Otherwise, this term describes how the natural environment of a region in which a particular food or drink is produced influences its flavor. Even watches are influenced by the local traditions of their makers. In the case of Glashutte watchmakers, although each has a unique point of view, there are regional signatures such as a swan-neck-shaped steel spring used for setting, the Côtes de Glashütte decoration on the plates (engraved freehand and wider than the Côtes de Genève), and the use of screwed gold chatons (small protective rings) on the three-quarter plate to keep the rubies positioned at the friction points to reduce wear.
Another important element is the use of German silver, but do not be fooled by the name, because there is very little silver in it. Instead, it is an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc.
The Manufacture
Upon entering one of A. Lange & Söhne’s buildings, the tour proper begins. We leave our phones at the entrance-only brand photographers are allowed to take pictures-and take the stairs, heading for the first room. Here we are shown polishing.
Every time you turn an A.Lange & Soehne watch over the case back, you can’t help but be captivated. To achieve this wow effect, Lange uses as many as 10 different finishing techniques on its movements. These are: striping (ribbing), “solarisation,” perlage, linear, circular and circumferential sandblasting, flat polishing, mirror polishing (black polishing), chamfering and polishing of inner corners. It would take a whole article to explain them all! Would you like to learn about them?
Click here to find a good portion of it explained!
Given the complexity of the processes and the substantial difference in the techniques and materials used compared to Swiss watchmaking, Lange recommends that overhauls always be done by them. You may be saying to yourself, “of course, who would advise otherwise,” but after seeing the processes and risks involved, I can assure you that if I had an A. Lange & Söhne, I would not have it touched by anyone else.
To simplify the work of watchmakers, Lange has also produced a whole set of component-specific tools so that they are easier to handle. Crazy!
Within the manufacture, each collection has a dedicated department with highly skilled watchmakers. Some rooms remain Top Secret, but we were able to enter the Lange 1 department, the model that relaunched the brand in 1994, and the Zeitwerk department.
Created in 2009, the Zeitwerk is a truly amazing watch. To show the hours as on a digital watch, its caliber must be able to store a lot of energy to be released every 60 seconds, to move the minute disc, and every 60 minutes, the hour disc as well. If this sounds simple to you, you have to imagine that one of these discs weighs much more than a normal pair of hands. Imagine the size of the spiral!
In addition, the watch movement must regularly wind the springs to move the discs, and it is necessary for the balance wheel to receive energy in a stable manner. The problem is that the additional springs take energy away from the main one, altering the amplitude of the balance oscillations and compromising accuracy. To do this, in addition to a special barrel with increased power, a rémontoire was used, which releases the energy at regular intervals while keeping it unchanged.Thanks to the research of Lange’s engineers, they were able to combine this complication (which to be precise is not a complication, but wanting, a complicated way of showing time), with a date watch, and two different types of repeater.
The Engraving
We have talked about engraving as one of the hallmarks of Glashutte watchmaking. Made on the bridge that holds the balance wheel of every A.Lange & Sohne watch, it follows floral motifs at the discretion of the engraver, who makes them freehand, putting his or her own signature on them in a way. In fact, it is even possible to trace the engraver back to the person who made the engraving from the design made!Some customers may also request a personalized engraving.
Watching the engraver’s work leaves you spellbound as you focus on the screen enlarging the tiny German silver component he is working on. There is no room for error.
Explaining the complexity of this process in words is difficult. That is why I will do it with pictures. On the left, the engraving I made – in my defense I had had a few too many coffees -, on the right, the engraver’s. Do you notice any differences?
The Grand Complications
The last room we visited is the Grand Complications room. From here come out watches of the caliber of the triple split, the Tourbillon Pour Le Mérite and the Turbograph, of which we were lucky enough to spot an example from the first series, which had come home for a SPA treatment (who doesn’t need one, from time to time).
The calibres that are assembled in this room reach extremely high levels of complexity (I specify this in case the name triple-split is not self-explanatory).You may not know that Lange assembles, disassembles and reassembles each movement. In the case of these ultra-complicated watches, whose movements also number more than 1,000 components, this process may have to be repeated as many as 3 or 4 times. This means that their assembly, from start to finish, can take even more than 6 months of work. Insane.
After finishing the tour, we headed to another building, where we were greeted with numerous trays full of A.Lange & Söhne watches from all collections. For those who are very passionate about the brand, there was a risk of fainting!
Introduced in 1999, only 5 years after the brand’s relaunch, the Datograph featured a revolutionary manufacture caliber. Philippe Dufour called it “the best chronograph movement ever made.” We also saw R.W. Smith wearing one in Geneva. I think there can be no better ambassadors than these.
Final thoughts
Over the years we have visited a few manufactures, small and large. Despite the very small production, about 5,000 pieces per year, Lange falls into the second category, of the large manufactures already established, partly because of the presence at the financial level of the Richemont group.
During the visit, however, you almost feel as if you are visiting a small, independent atelier, perhaps because of the creative freedom as opposed to the presence of the group, or perhaps because of the amount of handiwork that is done by the artisans working there. It is not often that one travels outside the borders of Switzerland to talk about watches; so, we hope you enjoyed this unusual trip with us. Until next time!
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