Since it launched in 1997, Urwerk has been guided by the hand of both luxury watchmaking and the world of science fiction. Its unconventional timepieces have ranged from the minimal UR-102, which looks somewhat like a parking meter, to the UR-120, which has been dubbed the “Spock” watch. No matter how minimal or outlandish, how beautiful or staggering, it seems like each one of the Swiss brand’s models is capable of evoking at least something from its onlookers. Its latest horological endeavor, which will go up for sale at this November’s Only Watch charity auction, is unlike anything it’s made before — and that’s because it’s not a wristwatch at all.
Partnering with manufacturer Dalibor Farny, Urwerk has now presented to us the one-of-one Space-Time Blade. To some, it will look like a lightsaber, while others will get immediate recollections of a vintage thermometer (the World’s Tallest Thermometer that you see on the drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas looks quite like this). Housed inside a 65.7-inch glass tube, the Space-Time Blade certainly tells you the time. To display the hours, minutes, and seconds, the clock uses something known as a Nixie tube, which consists of a wire-mesh anode and cathode tubes, which are filled with some sort of low-pressure gas that glows to display different numbers. Underneath the vertically-aligned numerals, there are two more tubes that display, in kilometers, the Earth’s rotation.
Although it’s very much a creation for 2023, the Space-Time Blade has its roots in a 19th-century complication as well as a 2019 wristwatch from Urwerk. For the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, Gustave Sandoz created what is called the “Equatorial Time” pendulum clock, which, aside from telling the time, has a regulator dial that depicts the number of kilometers the Earth has rotated each day at the equator. Urwerk then used this idea when it made the UR-100 SpaceTime a few years back and has now brought it to this new one-off for Only Watch.
Estimated to sell in the ballpark of $50,000 to $90,000, Urwerk’s Space-Time Blade will be available for bidding this November at the Only Watch charity auction.
