Each sphere is precisely 0.6 mm in diameter and coated with fine gold and silver. When the Hourglass is inverted, the precision balls fall and bounce in an unstructured but truly mesmeric way.
“When the idea was discussed to design a piece that would be beyond anything that exists in the watch market yet still be linked to it – I immediately thought of an hourglass. It is an ancient and noble concept. This hourglass is all about time, but in a more esoteric and fundamental way. I was thinking of having fun with time.”
“The hourglass is ancient, just like the wheel,” Newson muses. “It embodies the quintessence of time.”
Andelman spent two days at the GlasKeller factory in Basel filming the arduous craftsmanship behind the piece; each model requires a day to make, comprises highly durable borosilicate glass and thousands of metallurgical nanoballs, and is available in a ten- or 60-minute version. “I was surprised by the malleability of the glass; how they could bend and mold something that seems so strong yet so fragile,” Andelman says. “There are so many paradoxes at play, and I found that really poetic.”
