“I can’t find a watch to match your jewellery” a lady customer said to Walter Weinbeck. It was enough to set him on a new path.
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Goldsmithery has been Walter’s calling from early adulthood. He was only twenty-five years old when he left the studio of the renowned designer Paul Binder to start his own venture. As the last notable ambassador of the Zurich school of goldsmiths inspired by the Bauhaus art movement, Walter has been running his own studio at Grossmünsterplatz for over twenty years now. He lived up to the dream of his 25 year old self. But can he live up to the dreams of this lady customer and design a watch?
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- Walter Weinbeck
This challenge gave Walter a new momentum. Countless hours of design,
sketch after sketch, meeting after meeting with watch manufacturers
in Geneva ...he was after a design that was more intricate and
refined than it would appear at first glance. He wanted diamonds to
symbolise the hours of the day, but that was just a starting point.
In his first watch symbolically named No. 1, twelve diamonds move
freely thanks to a sophisticated and patented turn-tilt mechanism.
Recessed behind sapphire crystal and enveloped in
concave mirrors, they rotate with each sweep of the
hand, dancing gracefully around their axis. Like private
dancers, they dazzle for the pleasure of 12 wearers
only as it is a limited edition of 12. The watch is
not for show but rather for personal glow.
Young Walter dreamed of becoming an artist, but on
being told it was a career without future, he buried
that dream. He became a craftsman instead. Yet his
designs always drew inspiration from James Turell’s
light installations to Anish Kapoor’s artistic manipulations
of materials and space. Indeed, it is hard to look at the positioning
of the diamonds in the No. 1 and not think of Turell’s Aten Rein installation
at the Guggenheim Museum in New York (2013) or Kapoor’s
sky mirror permanent installation in Nottingham.
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- Weinbeck No.1 is available in rose and white gold with 12 cut diamonds totalling 3.0 to 3.5 ct. Diameter 36 mm, mechanical Swiss movement, personalized engraving possible on winding rotor. Other gold tones and platinum are available by special order.
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- Weinbeck’s second watch - Grace - appears graciously understated at first glance, yet with movement it becomes playfully bright as the light is reflected from the 24 diamonds surrounded by mirrors and tastefully concealed around the dial. A true delight for those fascinated with light.
