Like many watchmakers today, Felix Baumgartner grew up in a family with watchmaking ties. “My father restored clocks,” says the Schaffhausen, Switzerland native, “and my grandfather worked at IWC as a watchmaker.” Baumgartner’s interest in horology started at a very young age, so it was natural for him to study watchmaking, which he did in Solothurn, Switzerland.

However, instead of opting for a traditional route of going to work for a watchmaking manufacture or joining his father’s business after garnering his watchmaking diploma in Solothurn, Baumgartner decided to strike out on his own in Geneva as an independent watchmaker. “For me so see a future, as a young watchmaker, to just keep doing what watchmakers have done for 150 years, made me depressed. So I broke out of that and this is why we created Urwerk.” We wanted to create a new way of telling the time, with new mechanisms, new indications, with contemporary aesthetics.”

In 1995, Baumgartner, his brother Thomas, and artist Martin Frei began a discussion about the possibility of creating their own timepieces. Frei, who earned his degree in graphic design from the School of Visual Arts in Zurich, and later a Bachelor of Arts degree from the College of Art and Design in Lucerne, where he studied with famed Swiss artist Roman Singer. “We wanted to create a new way of telling the time, with new mechanisms, new indications, with contemporary aesthetics,” says Baumgartner.

The satellite hour system, first introduced in 2003 with the UR-103.1 has become iconic for the brand, “this system is inspired by clocks, old Italian clocks, reinterpreted in a watch. It is a traveling hour,” It’s not only for fun, it is for practicality, it’s very easy to read,” he says. The brand has produced several variations of the timepiece over the years, including the colorful recently introduced UR-105 TA “Clockwork Orange” and the UR-105 “Black Pink” piece.

The UR-105 TA (turbine automatic) watch’s automatic winding system includes a winding rate control lever to maximize efficiency and protect from overwinding. “You can give your watch more freedom, if you are a very active person, you can do your [automatic winding] watch harm by constantly overwinding your watch, I learned this while servicing watches, we often overwind our watches,” says Baumgartner. “But this one, you can adjust to your activity level. This is an additional complication we created for this watch. We do that to create a connection between you and the watch. And this kind of relation creates the love of the watch. Like with a car, the more interactivity you have with a car, the closer you come to a car. I like it when the wearer comes closer to the watch.” —Hyla Bauer