The largest watchmaking museum in the world
The Musée international d’horlogerie collects and preserves objects relating to time, its measurement and the history of watchmaking. Founded in 1902 as a room within the La Chaux-de-Fonds School of Watchmaking, the museum expanded over the years before opening a purpose-built home in 1974. Designed by Zurich architects Pierre Zoelly and Georges-J. Haefeli, the building is a landmark of innovative Swiss architecture, a concrete structure excavated into a park, its three underground levels connected by inviting open spaces and animated by natural light drawn in through sweeping curved windows. The building received the Concrete Architecture Prize and the European Museum of the Year Award in 1977.
The collection includes 10,000 objects that stand as a testament to the history of time measurement, with watches and clocks from the 16th century to the present day. Alongside horological instruments, the museum displays tools and machines from the watchmaking industry, automata, models and reconstructions of missing objects, and rich holdings of paintings, engravings and iconographic materials. The museum also assembles archives and historical documents to highlight the technical, artistic, social and economic history of watchmaking. On the museum’s forecourt stands a monumental sculpture by Onelio Vignando, “Chime,” which combines sounds, kinetic elements and light in an animated display every quarter hour.
Photos © J. Hoffman