Urwerk SpaceTime Blade
The SpaceTime Blade Limited Series: An Intergalatic Horologic Creation
URWERK invites you to a new kind of watchmaking experience that involves coming face to face with a creation transcending traditional notions of time and space and featuring an unparalleled system. There is no satellite complication here, no wandering hours, no planetary gears, no case and no dial. This instrument redefines time as only URWERK dares to do.
The SpaceTime Blades were designed to match URWERK’s outsize dreams and made possible by the dexterity of top-rate specialists in their respective fields. URWERK’s taste for originality and excess is well known, which meant it needed to find artisans driven by the same madness to bring its latest creation to life: a 1.70-meter-high, 20-kilogram metal and glass blade. This SpaceTime Blade is an imposing measuring instrument in the tradition of gnomons, the first pillars of time. SpaceTime Blades testifies to the Earth’s revolution around the Sun, an URWERK-ian space-time indicator. Solidly anchored in the ground, the SpaceTime Blades reach for the skies and in this upward direction they display hours, minutes, seconds… and much more.
The base of the SpaceTime Blade is an URWERK crown, an imposing, oversized structure. This crown was crafted by Mr Lukuvka a specialist in lost-wax casting applied to bronze. He is an artisan in the purest sense of the term, custodian of a traditional, now almost extinct process used to create delicate jewelry and fine ornamental pieces. He was tasked with sculpting the wax model, whose imprint served as a mold for casting the molten bronze. The resulting bronze base was then polished, buffed and given a patina. Ensuring compliance with the demanding URWERK aesthetic standards represented a mammoth endeavor.
Standing on this crown, a glass dome – featuring the same thickness throughout from base to rounded top – protects the SpaceTime Blade indications from the elements. Beneath it are eight vertically aligned and individually flame-shaped handmade Nixie bulbs.
Each of these oblong glass tubes has stood the test of fire. Each has danced and twirled under the blowtorch in order to acquire its characteristic appearance. They were then washed and freed of even the slightest impurities. These glass marvels were blown in Mr Votrubec’s workshops in the Czech Republic, in the vicinity of Novy Bor, nicknamed the “Crystal Valley” and a region listed on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List for its unique skills.
The remote control for this timepiece is just as exceptional, evoking the imaginary world of laser sabers, with eight display modes on offer ranging from time measurement to distance calculation:
Position 1: Indication of the hours, minutes and seconds
Position 2: Indication of the hours, minutes, seconds, 1/10ths and 1/100ths of a second
Position 3: Indication of the day, month and year
Position 4: Indication of the Earth’s daily rotation expressed in km (measured at the Equator – counter over a period of one day)
Position 5: Indication of the Earth’s revolution around the Sun expressed in km (counter covering a one-day period)
Position 6: Indication of the earth’s revolution around the Sun expressed in km (counter covering a one-year period)
Position 7: Screensaver display
Position 8: Off mode
The Urwerk SpaceTime Blade is a Limited Edition of 33 pieces.
Learn more about the Urwerk SpaceTime Blade at Cellini Jewelers, an Authorized Retailer for Urwerk. Contact us for pricing and availability at 212-888-0505.