Editor's Picks
The Jubilee Line: Kurt Klaus and CEO Christoph Grainger-Herr Talk 150 Years of IWC
Editor's Picks
The Jubilee Line: Kurt Klaus and CEO Christoph Grainger-Herr Talk 150 Years of IWC
Living History: Kurt Klaus
Kurt Klaus is the brand’s – and arguably watchmaking’s – greatest repository of horological culture. If watchmaking had a hall of fame, Kurt Klaus would have been inducted long, long ago. While he was the technical director of IWC, he oversaw the development of the world’s first industrial split-seconds chronograph, the world’s first Bourdon-tube depth gauge inside a wristwatch, the world’s first modular minute repeater, the world’s first seven-day-power-reserve automatic movement with hyper-efficient Pellaton winding system, and he single-handedly created the world’s first synchronised perpetual calendar where all information – day, date, month, year, leap-year indication, moon phases and even digital reading for the year – was controlled by a single crown.
The Custodian: Christoph Grainger-Herr
Revolution had the pleasure of sitting down with these two great innovators to discuss how the 150th anniversary of the brand was encapsulated in the collection of watches created to commemorate it. In doing so, we felt privileged to relive some wonderful memories with Klaus even as we learned how Grainger-Herr will steer the brand toward greater success in its inexorable future, always in the spirit of innovation.
Just Jonesing
The emphasis for the brand this year has been to take stock of the past, to honour the past, give glimpses of the future and, of course, to celebrate 150 years of watchmaking achievements. The collection takes inspiration from IWC’s founder F. A. Jones, a man that Grainger-Herr explains still means a great deal to the company. “Jones was a very precise and technical man, all about that meticulous side of engineering, but on the other hand he was a bold entrepreneur and a bit of a dreamer,” he says. When you look at our products and our stories today, it is very much that same combination – having fun with the ideas and concepts we come upon, but at the same time making sure everything is engineered to a very high Swiss-Germanic standard.
Coming to Schaffhausen
When it comes to life at IWC, Grainger-Herr and Klaus speak with one voice when they say they cannot imagine working at any other manufacture. “I was born in St. Gallen, not far from Schaffhausen,” said Klaus. “I wanted to come home and IWC was the only watch manufacture close by. I asked if they needed a watchmaker and they did, so I started in 1957 and I am still here – no longer working on watches, but representing the brand I love. I felt comfortable from day one, back when I was assembling the Mark 11 movement. I had never felt this before, not in school or work. It was the case even in the hard times of the 1970s and it is still the same feeling today. IWC is my home.”
Tumultuous Times
Klaus, a man that Grainger-Herr refers to as “a living memory of the company and our legacy of watchmaking”, was recruited by the legendary Technical Director Albert Pellaton, inventor of – among other things – the bidirectional Pellaton winding system. “I think about him every day,” Klaus says. “He was a special and talented man and I often wonder why he chose me to be his assistant. He started me off assembling movements and then I moved to the repair department – this was all to teach me the IWC philosophy. Interestingly, I repaired an original Pallweber. I remember it because it was a very difficult job and for this reason I admire the watchmakers who worked on the new models in the Jubilee Collection.
“I made a moonphase pocket watch, a simple calendar. I was lucky because, although most companies would have thought it crazy to produce a mechanical watch at this time, IWC decided to experiment and make a limited edition of the watch [containing Klaus’s Calibre 9721]. We made 100 pieces, just to see if there was any demand. We presented them at the Basel Fair in 1977 and they sold out in record time. It was excellent motivation to continue developing.”
The Visionary Road
When it comes to the Da Vinci Perpetual Calendar Chronograph, Grainger-Herr says it is probably IWC’s most important watch, an accolade that Klaus accepts with pride. “It is my story,” he says. “The big problem was that there were other perpetual calendars on the market, each a masterpiece and very complicated. IWC did not want to do it the same way as people would just see us imitating and that would not help us. It had to be new, extraordinary, never seen before.
Past Present
For Klaus, still an active ambassador for the brand at 83, these values of experimentation and innovation remain at the core of IWC. “The watchmakers are working in the same way that I did 60 years ago,” he says, adding with a little laugh: “Except they have modern tools. To apply oil, I had to use a pin; today they have a tube and a machine that does it with greater accuracy, but the positioning is still determined manually.”
And, when it comes to the creation of the Jubilee Collection, especially 2018’s hero watch, the Pallweber Edition “150 years”, Klaus congratulates everyone involved on their accomplishments. “I worked on a Pallweber pocket watch around 60 years ago,” he says. “It was seriously hard work. The idea was crazy and the piece was incredibly hard to assemble and adjust. I am happy that the young engineers today made this one with new technologies. And the result is fantastic – the dial and the complications really do suit a wristwatch.”
This internal barometer for judging what will appeal to clients emotionally is something that can, in part, be attributed to Grainger-Herr’s background in architecture – something that he automatically incorporates into the watches. “I love all areas of engineering and design – buildings, cars, jets – so IWC is the perfect watch brand for me,” he confides. “With the Jubilee Collection, I think we have got this mix of technicality and design just right. Even with the younger audience, the reception has been brilliant. I was not really expecting the millennials to fully understand the IWC Tribute to Pallweber, for example, as it is not mainstream in any way, but the new generation of watch buyers has welcomed it and shown an interest that I really didn’t expect.”
“On the other hand, it’s interesting to see that making a mechanism like a jumping hours and minutes is still extremely complex. We need to integrate two complete mainspring systems to power the base movement and the jumping mechanism. It is challenging, but it shows that the new generation can innovate just as well as the old generation.”
The New Standard
Which brings us neatly back to the Jubilee Collection. Finding it hard to choose a favourite from the 28 new watches, Klaus explains that he likes them all because they are now 100 per cent IWC production – from basic movements to calendars and repeaters – which was the ultimate goal of F. A. Jones when he first went to Schaffhausen.
Grainger-Herr explains how the watches for this important celebration year were chosen: “We wanted to go beyond what we had done for the 140th anniversary where we reinterpreted the original watches from each range. This time we wanted a collection that celebrates the past and present, so we looked to heritage pieces and watches from the more recent past – the Portofino Moon Phase from 2017, for example, captures the spirit of the original 1984 Portofino Moon Phase, yet it is modern in every way. We have also introduced brand-new pieces. So, the criteria were iconic designs and a big range of interpretations.
This uniform look is the reason that there are no sports watches included in the collection – the Ingenieur and Aquatimer being conspicuous through their absence – and also the rationale for the more complicated versions of the IWC Pilot’s Watches. “These are the pilots’ watches for everyman,” says Grainger-Herr. “The case is polished rather than sandblasted or brushed, as it doesn’t have to go into battle. It has a more festive look and is more classic.”
Last Words
If forced to choose one new watch that best represents the whole collection, for Grainger-Herr, it would be the Perpetual Calendar. “It is the clarity of the dial combined with the huge complication that is a massive engineering challenge but so simple to operate,” he explains. “I think clarity and simplicity are what IWC is all about. We don’t do complications for the sake of making something complicated. We do it because we are systems engineers at the end of the day and we are solving a practical problem – and doing it beautifully. Any watch needs to be industrialised and it needs to have emotional storytelling because that is what our brand encapsulates.”
“I completely agree,” nods Grainger-Herr. “IWC is about steady, intelligent, consistent advancement. A smarter, better and hopefully more beautiful watch each time. This was the ethos at our foundation, and this is what we will continue to do into the future.”