A Certain Purity: The MB&F Legacy Machine LM 101 (51.S1L.W)
A most elevated take on the balance wheel.
The first time I met Maximillian Büsser, he’d come to New York for the US launch of Horological Machine No. 2 (HM2, for short) and he took me to lunch at the Museum of Modern Art, which seemed like a very suitable location to see a piece of horological modern art. HM2 has now become, as so often happens with acts of aesthetic transgression, a classic in its own right but it remains an excellent example of the basic sentiment behind all the Horological Machines – to build a movement and case that essentially deconstructs the traditional design language of fine watchmaking and re-imagines it in terms of cultural icons ranging from cars, to manga in particular and science fiction in general, to aircraft, spacecraft, and even highly stylized representations of denizens of the animal kingdom.
At some point, however, Max – who obviously has an appreciation for classical fine watchmaking craftsmanship values – began to wonder what sort of watches he would have made had he been born with the tastes he has in the present, but in an earlier era – “What would have happened if I had been born in 1867 instead of 1967?” In 2011, we saw the answer to that question – the first Legacy Machine, which was also the first-ever round watch from MB&F. LM1 would go on to win the Best Men’s Watch prize at the 2012 GPHG, and it introduced a basic new design feature which would be found in virtually all subsequent Legacy Machines – the so-called “flying balance,” in which a very large, 14mm diameter balance (the balance in an ETA 2892, for comparison, is 9mm in diameter) is suspended above the plane of the dial underneath a bridge composed of two arches that terminate on the upper balance pivot.
The first Legacy Machines, LM1 and LM2, were somewhat complicated watches – LM1 had two dials showing the time in two time zones, as well as a curved, three dimensional power reserve and LM2, which was designed by long-time MB&F collaborator Steven McDonnell, had a “split escapement” in which the balance staff’s lower pivot and antishock jewel were set into a bridge on the back of the movement, with the escape wheel on the back of the movement as well – a sort of logical extension of the notion of making the balance appear to oscillate without any direct connection to the rest of the going train, first explored in HM1. For the next Legacy Machine – LM 101, first launched in 2014 – MB&F returned to the original configuration of LM1, with the balance, lever, and escape wheel visible below the domed crystal. After going in-depth on the latest Legacy Machine earlier this week – the LM Sequential Flyback chronograph – it’s LM 101 (51.S1L.W) which we’re looking at in this edition of A Watch A Week.
The most dynamic element in any watch is the balance, but despite its visual appeal it is almost never visible when a watch is being worn – the only exceptions are watches with apertures cut in the dial, including tourbillons. There is of course an ongoing difference of opinion in the collector community about such open dials – some folks find them off-putting, for a number of reasons (they are not traditional; they disrupt the harmony of the dial) and some folks like them, also for various reasons (it’s a chance to have a little show on your wrist; it’s a reminder that your watch is mechanical; if I’m going to pay six figures for a tourbillon I want to be able to see the darned thing). The LM 101 however is a different animal entirely – it’s a watch where putting the balance on show is taken to its logical conclusion and the entire watch is engineered around creating a really unique visual experience, in the belief that if you are going to make a show of the balance, make it a (literally) big show.
This platinum-cased, 40mm watch was when it was introduced, one of the most wearable MB&F Machines, Legacy or otherwise, and the 101 name was intended to reflect its emphasis on fundamentals. You could never call this a back-to-basics watch, though. The balance remains suspended well above the dial (which requires a highly domed crystal) from the double-arched bridge, the shape of which is reflected in the bridge for the escape wheel and lever. This movement was the first developed completely in-house by MB&F, with input on finishing and layout from Kari Voutilainen and as you’d expect from his involvement, finishing is topnotch.
While the movement is undeniably beautiful, and a firm anchor in the world of really traditional fine watchmaking (that S-shaped center wheel bridge looks like it could have come straight out of a vintage pocket chronometer) the dramatic three-dimensionality of the dial side is what makes this not just a legacy machine, but a Legacy Machine. I don’t know if it’s literally what Max Büsser would have made if he’d been born in 1867 instead of 1967 but that thought experiment is in any case a point of departure, not a specifically codified formula.
And even though the dial side is obviously the more modern of the two faces of the watch, it’s not without its own connection to fine watchmaking traditions. The choice of fonts for the power reserve Arabics and the elongated Roman numerals on the subdial for the time are one such connection; another is the use of a hand-formed Breguet overcoil balance spring, the – and, as well, the lacquered surface of the subdials, which gives the depth of fired enamel.
All of MB&F’s watches are extraordinary, and each is extraordinary in its own way. In this instance, the LM 101 distinguishes itself from the other Legacy Machines in its essential nature – it is despite the technical pyrotechnics, a watch that expresses some of the most fundamentally fascinating aspects of not only its own design, but mechanical horology in general. LM 101 is not so much a revolution in watchmaking as it is a kind of mechanical meditation on what it is that makes watchmaking fascinating in the first place – and a reminder that at its best, fine watchmaking of any kind is at its most satisfying when there’s no dichotomy between aesthetics and mechanics.