Gerald Genta, 'miracle' watchmaker to the world

GENEVA (JP): It's a long way from the sundial of ancient Egypt to the world's most complicated and most expensive timekeeping of today created by Gerald Genta, whose revolutionary ideas in watchmaking have earned him the title "Miracle Worker".

"His first miracle was to bring to life Switzerland's listless watchmaking production and to give it imagination and color," writes Augusto Veroni in the December 1996-March 1997 edition of l'Orologio. "His second was to combine a refined awareness of esthetics with a highly sophisticated technique for the production of the world's most complex and costly wristwatches. The third miracle was to sell eight of these timepieces even before they were launched."

When he started his own company in Le Brassus, the cradle of Swiss watchmaking skills in 1969, he had already created some of this century's most notable classics on behalf of prestigious brand-name watchmakers. The list includes the digital Timex and Audemars Piguet's celebrated Royal Oak, the entire Breguet collection, Patek Philippe's Nautilus, l'Ingenieur (and other watches) for IWC and Cartier's Pasha.

Since the establishment of his Le Brassus workshop, Genta has continued to revolutionize the world of watchmaking with his innovations. A visionary artist with a passion for fine mechanics, Genta was the first to breathe new life into watchmaking complications when he created timepieces with a technical prowess equaled only by their refined esthetics.

Combining creative genius and watchmaking expertise in the making of his wristwatches, he used geometric forms, colors and materials nobody had thought of before him. No challenge seems to big for him. He was, for example, the first to produce wooden dials.

"We once had an order for a dial with a touch of blood on it from Gunther Sachs, a former husband of actress Brigitte Bardot," said Mario D'Antoni, Genta's dial master.

Genta is also the first and only brand so far to have produced bronze watches, and the first to produce the thinnest minute repeater. To date, its thickness of 2.72 mm has not been equaled (the normal thickness is between 4 mm-4.5 mm).

"We are also the only one to have produced the waterproof minute repeater," said Jean-March Jacot, Gerald Genta's marketing consultant.

As far as the technical side is concerned, Genta's secret is held by Pierre-Michel Golay, his right-hand man. A movement designer, Golay has brought together a group of first-class technicians, with whom he manages to satisfy Genta's exacting demands.

Genta and Golay are not only responsible for a rekindled interest in perpetual calendars, but they also produced many exceptional and innovative creations whose crowning achievement is the extraordinary Grande Sonnerie, the most expensive and complicated watch in the world that took five years to develop.

"The Grande Sonnerie consists of over 1,000 parts, each moving in harmony with the others. Imagine the complication," said Jacot.

This masterpiece of Genta, the first Grande Sonnerie with automatic movement, features two barrels and a double power reserve display, one for the movement, the other for the chime. Both are rewound through winding wheels.

To sound the hours and quarter hours, the Grande Sonnerie features a Westminster chime with four hammers, another world first. It also boasts a push button to trigger the minute repeater. A locking system prevents the chime spring from completely loosening as a result of ringing out the Big Ben tune. The safety system prevents the chime mechanism from stopping the movement. A few turns of the crown is all that is needed to reactivate the mechanism.

Special push buttons allow the wearer to opt for the petite sonnerie, which sounds hours or quarter hours only, of the mute function. Hands display the various functions on the dial.

With a diameter of 3 cm and a thickness of 8.4 mm, the Grande Sonnerie movement also incorporates a tourbillon, a quentieme perpetuel mechanism and a second 24-hour time zone display.

In order to accommodate this movement and its 1000-plus pieces, Gerald Genta has designed a precious case, which testifies to his technical prowess. A sapphire crystal in the back of the watch allows to view the search for form and perfection of movement.

Nine of these watches have been produced since the Grande Sonnerie was launched in 1994. Gerald Genta himself wears one on his wrist, while the others have been sold at the "modest" sum of US$1 million.

"The word is that the evening before the opening of the Basel World Watch and Jewellery show in 1994, a wealthy buyer had telephoned Genta at his hotel and asked for four of the Grande Sonnerie. The next morning, the same person called Genta at dawn to say he had thought about it all night and wanted all eight of the watches," writes Veroni.

The name which is most frequently associated with this story is, as so often when it comes to expensive items, the Sultan of Brunei, who has perhaps the most precious collection of watches in the world. Whether it was him or someone else, Genta is supposed to have collected US$8m that year, even before his stand opened at the Basel Show.

The reason why it costs so much lies in the impeccability of its making. All the 1,000-plus parts are manufactured at Genta's workshops in Geneva and Le Brassus. Each part is individually polished to perfection. For example, it takes two hours to polish each of the hammers striking the chimes of the Grande Sonnerie. During polishing, each piece is covered with an abrasive paste containing diamond dust, rubbed against a sheet of ground glass, washed and examined under a magnifying glass.

This is all repeated until a satisfactory result is achieved. Then the same steps are carried out using a paste whose diamond powder has a finer grain, and then a third even finer paste.

Polishing is then completed by rubbing the piece with a softwood tool to obtain a virtually perfect, mark-free surface even when examined under high magnification. This type of polishing is applied to most of the approximately 1,000 components of the movement and to all angled surfaces of the bridges and plates. (lem)