Traditional or Modern? The Two Faces of the Tourbillon

The tourbillon’s patent was filed exactly 220 years ago, in 1801. Nowadays, the tourbillon has two faces – its purest, traditional form, and one in which every last detail is modernized. The choice is yours!

The tourbillon is always the subject of fierce debate in the watchmaking world. Is it a complication or an escapement? Is there any point to it in a wristwatch these days? Does using two or three of them simultaneously afford extra precision? Should they be flat or inclined? There will be as many answers as there are watchmakers. That said, there are two main schools of thought, at a respectable distance from each other – traditionalists and modernists. And while they are both based on the same invention patented in 1801, they embody two very different visions of fine watchmaking.

Once a Traditionalist, Always a Traditionalist

The more traditional side is indubitably best embodied by the manufacture that holds the June 1801 patent: Breguet. The firm is still committed to giving the tourbillon a very classical look even as it abides by key technical standards, in particular flat rotation in one minute.

Although many patents have been developed by Breguet to optimise its tourbillons, the firm’s approach embodies the purest tradition of fine watchmaking. The Classique Tourbillon Extra-Plat Automatique 5367 is a case in point: a creation in which the Breguet tradition features prominently, whilst invisibly incorporating certain undeniable technical advances, notably a high-energy barrel providing an impressive 80-hour power reserve. Other firms have taken the same path, producing flawless incarnations of the most traditional aesthetics. They include Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, Chopard, Jaeger-LeCoultre, F.P. Journe, and Jaquet Droz, and encompass very fine feminine variations of tourbillons for ladies – still very few and far between on the market.

Independent But Committed to Tradition

Among the independents in the field are Laurent Ferrier, a former watchmaker for Patek Philippe, and Ferdinand Berthoud, a firm that also has roots in the Breguet century through the watchmaker whose name it bears. Based in Schaffhausen, H. Moser & Cie also offers a tourbillon with very traditional styling, as does Bovet with its Recital range. Hermès has its classic-style tourbillon too, albeit with a more equestrian and Parisian flavour.

The Richemont Group’s Cartier has had a different take. When Carole Kasapi-Forestier was at the helm of the firm, it made a foray into exceptional tourbillons, with a distinctive feature that the manufacture masters perfectly – the mysterious tourbillon. This involves a structure using plenty of sapphire crystal to give the illusion of a tourbillon literally hanging in thin air – either in a traditional, stationary position at 6 o’clock, or embarking on a full rotation round the dial.

Distinctiveness takes the opposite tack at Patek Philippe and Laurent Ferrier, two brands that take great care to locate the tourbillon on the movement side of the watch, upholding the purist approach according to which the tourbillon is not a complication but a regulating organ, and as such should be visible only from the rear.

In Thrall to Modernity

In contrast to all this, the modernist strand is characterised by its complete creative freedom. In this register, the tourbillon is fully emancipated. And in that respect, it would be difficult not to mention MB&F. The creative collective has been having fun for the best part of twenty years now, encasing its tourbillon in spaceships, robots, and lunar modules, sometimes in acrobatic positions. The Horological Machine (HM) and Legacy Machine (LM) have conquered high-ranking collectors, who have homed in on these creations – sometimes disturbing, always impeccably made.

In similarly modern vein, and even more outrageously technical to boot, there are two unmissable references. One of these is Hublot. With timepieces likes its Big Bang Tourbillon Automatique Sapphire Orange, the manufacture has demonstrated its expertise with the tourbillon (technically) and with sapphire (aesthetically).

The other is Richard Mille, with ultra-sporty tourbillons such as Rafael Nadal’s RM 27-04 for tennis, Alain Prost’s RM 70-01 for cycling, and the brand-new RM 40-01 Speedtail, co-produced with McLaren. Bell & Ross had previously explored the intersection of watchmaking and cars with Renault Sport and the BR-X1 Tourbillon. In the same sports register, TAG Heuer put the cat among the pigeons by making the tourbillon available to a much wider clientele, with prices originally starting at US$15,000. Since then, the Heuer 02T caliber has become a collector’s item.

The Hidden Face of Tradition: Multiple, Inclined, and Skeletonized Tourbillons

More generally, with the comeback of Fine Watchmaking (and with it, the tourbillon) a few years before the turn of the millennium, a number of brands attempted some especially daring developments of the tourbillon. They modernised the approach to it, whilst remaining mindful of the appropriate etiquette. One way to do this was to have more of them. This take, at once technical and stylistic, resonated with Greubel Forsey and Antoine Preziuso. For Greubel Forsey, the result was not two similar tourbillons side by side, but instead a single tourbillon inserted into two different cages, rotating at two different speeds. Antoine Preziuso, meanwhile, went entirely the other way, with no fewer than three parallel tourbillons, rotating on the same plate, leading to them being described as ‘planetary’.

Double tourbillons are somewhat more frequent, produced both by Breguet itself and by some independents – Speake-Marin, Louis Moinet, and Manufacture Royale among them. In this scenario, the aim is more about achieving a captivating visual effect than about sheer weight of numbers. A similar approach is to be found at Hysek, the apostles of extreme skeletonisation, with tourbillons reduced to breath-taking levels of minimalism.

Then of course there is the middle path: preserving tourbillons’ traditional aesthetic appearance whilst varying their number and position. For instance, some brands have installed tourbillons vertically: they include Cyrus, as well as F.P. Journe’s rather more surprising but extremely fun offering.

Bulgari and Piaget’s tourbillons are ultra-flat, whereas Carl F. Bucherer’s are peripheral. For Kerbedanz, the tourbillon must be outsize – not least in its outstanding creation, the appropriately-named Maximus, still the largest tourbillon ever constructed, with a cage 27 millimetres in diameter. The watch is powered by four barrels providing a 48-hour power reserve and beats at the gentle rhythm of 18,000 vibrations per hour. The watch itself is 49 millimetres in diameter, providing a spectacular stage for the tourbillon.