This year, Revolution turns 20. Two decades of chronicling watches, people and ideas have given us a front-row seat to a remarkable story: how an age-old craft has both preserved its soul and reinvented itself for the 21st century. To celebrate, we’ve chosen over 100 names and milestones that, for us, define the era so far. From leaders to watches, you can see the whole list here.

It was the early 2000s. Harry Winston’s magna Opus project was just taking off, but it was still some years before the indie watchmaking movement gained momentum. Urwerk, made up of Felix Baumgartner and Martin Frei, had released their UR-101 and UR-102, which featured an unconventional wandering hours display inspired by a clock made for the Pope in the 17th century. Responses were encouraging, but it was not until UR-103 that the world set up and took notice.

URWERK UR-103.01

UR-103 was revolutionary, disruptive and completely innovative in its presentation of time. It was first launched in 2003 as the UR-103.01, but it was the UR-103.03, which opened up the intricate workings of its wandering hours display, that made a real splash. At a time when other watches were mostly round, flat and staid, the UR-103 was housed in an asymmetrical case with a fully curved U-shaped sapphire crystal that resembled an Art Deco spaceship more than a watch. It had four rotating satellites that orbit around a central orbiting cross, each completing a full revolution every four hours. Time was indicated by an orbiting hour satellite passing the minute arc at the foreground of the dial. As each satellite approached the crown position, it, in turn, rotated 120 degrees on its own axis and lined up the next hour for its place at the front of the dial.

URWERK UR-103.03 in White Gold

The back of the watch, meanwhile, referenced vintage marine-style chronometers which placed less frequently used indications at the back — here, a control dashboard of sorts with power reserve indicator, a chronometer with dual 15-minute and seconds dial for time setting, and a precision adjustment screw that let the user adjust the timing by +/– 30 seconds a day.

The control dashboard at the caseback

The UR-103 didn’t just tell time; it broke from the old and conventional ways of time telling and made it anew with an entirely new vocabulary. Its sculptural space-age aesthetics, technical innovations and bold presentation of time captured the imagination of an entire generation of watchmakers and watch lovers, helping the cause of avant-garde independent watchmaking and inching it forward into the mainstream. What would the indie scene have looked like without the UR-103? Your guess is as good as mine. But just as Vianney Halter laid the groundwork with Antiqua in the late 1990s, Urwerk and the UR-103 paved the way for the likes of MB&F and its Horological Machines, Hautlence, HYT et al. Thirteen editions later, including the UR-103 Tarantula with its case almost completely pulled back, and UR-103 Shining, the ultra lightweight edition with disks crafted out of sapphire and featuring Super Lumi-Nova numerals, Baumgartner and Frei finally closed the chapter on the UR-103 in 2010. In the years leading up to that and well beyond, their watchmaking odyssey continued with other groundbreaking achievements such as the wildly ambitious EMC aka Electro Magnetic Control and the iconic UR-210 and 220 series. But we will always remember the UR-103.03 as the spark that ignited it all.

URWERK UR-103 Tarantula

Tech Specs: URWERK UR-103

Movement: Manual winding Caliber 3.03; 43-hour power reserve
Functions: Wandering hours, minutes and seconds
Case: 50mm × 36mm × 13.5mm (including lugs); 18K white gold or red gold
Dial: Black with four rotating satellites, orbital cross in Grade 2 titanium, 15-minute and seconds subdials
Strap: Leather