It is a rare thing in this day and age that a watch manufacturer, especially one that is less than 15 years old, undertakes the building of a grand clock. For a company that generally bases their watches on the new materials and technology found in Formula 1 cars, the brake pads for the Space Shuttle, or the material for afterburners in the B2 Stealth Bomber, a two-metric-ton clock as part of a civic project is about as far as it can be from its core stock and trade. Richard Mille has arguably redefined the very concept of luxury, creating luxury products that are not defined by the precious metals and gems they contain, but by the technique and unique materials involved in crafting the final product. In agreeing to manufacture a municipal clock as an international gift between French speaking nations, the challenge was how Richard would translate his ethos from the very small and light to the very grand and imposing. The logistics multiply exponentially in the manufacturing and installation of such a large-scale clock. The resulting clock’s design and mechanics are in keeping with the Richard Mille design aesthetic, so much so that even if you removed the nameplate on the clock, anyone with even a passing interest in watches and clocks would recognize it as a Richard Mille piece.
Today, large-scale clocks are something of an anachronism, a vestige of a bygone age when central clocks were not only the source of accurate time for the local community, but also for railways, with their set timetables that carried time from the city to the outlying towns. The clocks dictated the time of day, the hours spent working, resting, eating, and socializing—and therefore, the pace of life.
In the 21st century, clocks of this scale are still occasionally made, but mostly by artisans who specialize in manufacturing and restoring bigger clocks. The clocks tend to be traditional in both design and execution. In 2008, the Canton of Jura in Switzerland decided to present a gift of a perpetual clock to the Province of Quebec in Canada to celebrate four centuries of the French-speaking province and as a symbol of friendship between the two regions. The clock would display the time of day in each region and with it, represent a tangible reminder that French-speaking regions are united across the globe and separated only by time differences.
In searching for a suitable watch company to both design and manufacture a clock, Jura was looking for something unique, something that would be noticed and admired, and they approached Richard Mille about the project. Given the list of requirements, it is perhaps no surprise that the Canton settled on Richard Mille S.A. The Richard Mille aesthetic is unique in watchmaking: combining traditional skills with new techniques and materials.
Once Richard had accepted the commission, he was faced with the unenviable task of manufacturing a clock that would be permanently installed in the gardens outside the town hall in Quebec. Named “l’Horloge Porte-Bonheur” (the good-luck clock) the clock represents the best of the culture, technological know-how, and horological design of the Canton of Jura and Richard Mille. To add a degree of difficulty to the task, Richard wanted to keep the clock true to both the aesthetic and method of manufacture found in his watches. And that defined the two main challenges that Richard and his team faced: the scale of the clock and the method of manufacture. The intention was to manufacture a clock that was instantly recognizable as Richard Mille’s work and incorporate both new materials and horological innovation.
The clock that now sits in its own housing in the Jardins de l’Hôtel de Ville in Quebec took six years to create, from appointment to installation. Developing and installing the clock also required the help of the Technical College of Porrentruy and the Neuchâtel Haute Ecole Arc. The team charged with the development of the clock logged 6,571 hours of work time. The clock is comprised of 5,451 components and required 3,952 hours of assembly and adjustment. It measures 3.5 meters x 2.5 meters x 1.3 meters and weighs almost two metric tons. After the clock was constructed at the Richard Mille manufacture, it was tested for six months. Another six months was required to disassemble the clock at Porrentruy and reassemble it in Quebec. In the end, due to the amount of work, obsessive attention to detail, design, and finishing, and the resources put into the clock, it ended ended up, in a sense, as much a gift from Richard Mille as it was from Jura. But then, that is Richard’s way: don’t compromise on horology, finish or technique.
Among the host of challenges in creating this unique clock with the Richard Mille aesthetic was finding a new set of suppliers able to machine, hand finish, deliver and carefully assemble the parts for a clock of this size. The 5,451 parts that comprise the clock are crafted of brass, stainless steel, titanium, aluminium, ceramic and ruby, the same materials found in watches. The clock still has all the signature attributes of a Richard Mille: the same hand-finishing techniques can be found in this piece of haute horlogerie, such as satin-brushed surfaces, polished edges and micro bead–blasted components, although on a much larger scale. Additionally, in the same manner that you can see the calibre, gear trains and balance wheel through the antireflective-treated mineral glass around the movement in Richard Mille watches, such is the case with the clock.
The clock has a perpetual calendar, with the date displayed on rolling bars. The gears are cleverly utilized to serve as visual separators between the different date indications. The Jura-Quebec clock includes a rare complication for a clock: the equation of time. A slow-moving driving weight operates as a mobile slide-contact along a sinuous red line etched on the glass panel on the left side of the clock to display the equation of time, where a scale is engraved on the weight with the red line indicating the variations in minutes between “apparent solar time” and “mean solar time” throughout the year. At any moment throughout the year, the difference (read in terms of minutes) can be clearly read from the horizontal linear scale from both sides. Finally, to demonstrate the clock’s symbolic link between the two French-speaking regions, a second time zone, of Jura, is displayed all along the glass column on a twenty-four hour scale, made visible by the ascending movement of a specific window. To maintain the clock’s accuracy, the clock is encased in a tightly sealed housing to protect it from external influences such as temperature variations, humidity, and dust.
Although a number of people were involved in the design of various elements for the clock over the years it was being constructed, there were three people who were with it to the end. Richard, of course; Dominique Guenat (Richard’s business partner and owner of Montres Valognes) who was responsible for directing and designing the clock in terms of the overall project, and Salvador Arbona, who was responsible for the everyday running of the clock and overseeing the work. I had the chance to sit down with Salvador and talk through some of the more important elements of the clock that have perhaps been a little overlooked.
The clock contains not only a unique design, but also two horological and technical advancements making the clock a stand alone “Piece Unique” in its own right. First, the actual weight of the hands on the clock face forced the trio from Richard Mille S.A. to look for a solution in terms of a remontoire that keeps a constant force from the gears. The remontoire has a series of moving wheels within the clock that allows an extremely accurate and constant power from the escapement, with a release every 30 seconds to keep the accuracy of the regulating pendulum. The pendulum oscillates every second. The escapement drive is ensured by an endless chain mechanism named a “de Huygens” that makes the power of the escapement wheels perfectly regular, even during the winding phase. But don’t be fooled! Despite its size and bulk, the clock mechanism requires hours of very fine setting applied on each element to make the clock accurate.
The second element that was innovative was the pendulum. Typically “Richard Mille” futuristic in design, the whole part is made of Invar. Usually, Invar is used for several small components in a watch: perhaps the plate of a bridge, even a mainspring, but hardly something the size and weight of the pendulum for a civic scale clock. So now imagine, because you want to ensure that the timing of the clock does not alter on the minutest expansion or contraction in the weight of the pendulum itself, you construct the whole thing out of Invar. Richard, and the team constructing the clock, took this decision because any expansion or contraction of the metal for the pendulum leads to an increase or decrease of the amplitude in the swing that keeps time. The pendulum becomes that “Richard Mille” element to the clock: the part that is re-thought with new materials to improve time keeping. The futuristic pendulum is composed of 34 pieces for a weight of 18,85 Kg—and that’s just the regulating arm of the clock! The main stem is a meter long. The oscillation of the pendulum can be set with two screws: one placed under the bezel and the second under the Invar stem for a finer setting. Even the pendulum was designed with aerodynamics in mind: note the wing-like shape of the weight. Finally, the pendulum was fixed by a fine elastic slide made of hard “cold-forged” steel to maintain the maximum freedom during oscillation and keep the force rigidly straight and direct.
I asked Richard if the clock’s design could be scaled to manufacture a limited production run of grandfather clocks. The knowledge of part suppliers, design and geometry of the movement are already established. I told Richard that as I was someone who was brought up with a father who was a vintage clock collector, and the hypnotic ‘tick-tock’ of the pendulum on his Jura-Quebec clock brought back memories of the fireside and reading on cold winter evenings. I think a modern grandfather clock, designed and manufactured by Richard Mille, would be desired by a quite a few people. A wry smile from Richard: “At first, I thought this could be a good possibility, but the cost..mamma mia! I am afraid it will be difficult…We’ll try anyway!” Perhaps a new line of grandfather clocks will be possible in the future.
—Andrew Hildreth